So, this was a fun movie. Not going to be a favorite of mine from the MCU but I enjoyed it. Then again, I enjoyed the last Captain America Movie and some people did not like that movie, apparently. I don't know, I'm a sucker for anything superhero related. So take everything I say in this article with a grain of salt.

There will be [[[SPOILERS]]], not holding back, so if you haven’t seen it by now, you have been warned.

So, this movie pretty much puts together people with super abilities that are not really as evil as say Thanos or full-on-villain Loki or even Ultron. No, these guys are basically the lead villain’s minions who were duped into killing each other and set up in a trap to cover the villain’s evil deeds. Can I just say, Julia Louis-Dreyfus makes a good villain. Ever since Brian Cranston proved that a comedian actor can grow into a serious villainous role, I’ve been down for comedians giving villain roles a shot, especially in superhero movies.

De Fontaine has been pulling strings for a while and now her evil deeds are being uncovered. So she sends the current Black Widow, USAgent, Ghost, and Taskmaster to go to one of her secret bases and kill an “intruder”. And she basically pulls a Heath Ledger Joker and tells them to kill each other without them knowing the full story.

Man, and here comes the part that bums me out. I’m a fan of obscure villains and I enjoyed Taskmaster's inclusion in Black Widow. Of all the villains to return, I was excited for her but sadly she was a casualty to De Fontaine’s trap. I was so salty about this but I should have saw it coming since Taskmaster was not in a lot of promotional videos or screenshots. It still makes me sad that the one member I was excited for gets killed off in the second act. She got Slipknot-ed, a character that got killed off in the first Suicide Squad basically in the first act.

At least they could have let Taskmaster do some stuff until the end of the movie then get killed off, like Pokadot Man in the second Suicide Squad movie. But I do get it, the inclusion of Bob aka Sentry would have made it five characters in the main roles, then adding Bucky and Red Guardian would have been seven and that would have been too much. RIP Taskmaster 🪦

So we get the gain together, and there is a Bob. I have always used "Bob" in tabletop games as a generic funny-haha name to give a one shot character. But De Fontaine accidentally had scientists give ultimate power to a broken man named BOB. I know next to nothing about Sentry other than his main archnemesis is himself. I also know he’s basically Marvel's Superman but the real parody of Superman from Marvel is actually Hyperion but I digress.

Honestly, I will come out and say this, David Harbour’s Red Guardian is the reason to watch this movie. Harbour I saw first on Stranger Things and his role in that series is night and day compared to Red Guardian. He’s not quite at Rocket and Groot levels of comedy but it is a welcome breath of air in all the dark and heavy themes in this movie.

But I have to say, maybe it's because I’ve seen so many dark animes with some really heavy themes, but the dramatic moments in this movie did not hit me as hard as others in the MCU. Bob’s ability to send people into a Void, where they face their greatest traumas, is effective in developing the character’s stories. However, for me, I’m like, "well . . . okay". I’m not knocking it but I’m not going to rave how original and dark and gritty and wild it all is. I feel like I’ve seen dark superheroes experiencing trauma and angst plenty of times before. I mean, DC thrived off that dank dark well for several movies before they finally got James Gunn to go into another direction.

Maybe it’s me, which it is likely to be, but I want to have fun in a superhero movie. The world itself is dark enough and I’ve watched enough dark interpretations of Batman and other heroes that I’m just numb to all of it. But enough with dark tangents, let’s continue.

So, a Super Soldier, a mercenary who can phase, and a Black Widow are walking through the desert, trying to avoid their enemy’s armed forces. And then a loud comic relief Super Soldier pulls up in his limo and loudly says “Hey! Guy! Need a lift!” And so in the Red Guardian mobile, our four anti-heroes try to outrun the badder bad guys. Then Bucky Barnes shows up and takes out the badder bad guys but then turns on the anti-heroes and captures them.

Throughout this movie, Bucky is gunning to take De Fontaine down. And he has captured three of her former associates that are key to bring her to justice. But they all explain to him that she has a Bob and that is a bad thing. Bucky sighs and obviously is thinking something like “I’m getting too old for this shit” and agrees to help them.

And where is De Fontaine’s new evil base of operations? Avengers Tower in New York city. You know, after the alien attack and Ultron, I’m surprised that anyone is willing to be near that building. De Fontaine tries to seduce Bob to the dark side but little does she know that his Void side is more powerful.

We get some more action, the Thunderbolts show up to take the badder bad guys down, and face off against De Fontaine. But. . .

Bob gets to be Sentry for a few minutes, even has a cool superhero outfit, beats up the Thunderbolts, and is all like “Yo, Homelander might have the right idea. I am a God.” And De Fontaine is like "no you are mine to command" and he be all like, “ha, nope”. Senrty tries to kill her but a kill switch is a thing and is pressed by her assistant and Bob goes down. Then, when they think Bob is dead, he becomes "the Void" and looks totally like an anime nightmare monster. Thumbs up for the effects on that sleep paralysis demon, Marvel 👍

Bob’s Void side sends all of New York into darkness and I just have to wonder . . . what about the little girl who was sent first into the Void? Was she old enough to have real serious trauma? And what about all the other civilians? Like, I know we have zero time to go into John Doe or Plain Jane’s Void side experience but now the poor populace of Long Island have yet another horrible thing to mentally deal with. Like, is New York okay in the MCU? Alien invasions, Hulks breaking stuff, Sorcerer Fights, The Blip, and now a Void monster sends everyone into their most horrible memories imaginable. And the movie just brushes this whole thing off at the end.

Will it be addressed that this Void-Shadow-Thing happened to a major city? I know we have future movies to go further into it but I really hope it's not brushed away. Heck, De Fontaine just casually dropped some shade about President Ross becoming the Red Hulk. I guess where I am coming from is this: Does everything these MCU heroes have to face HAVE to be something WORLD ENDING? Like, seriously, I was not expecting this Void-Shadow-Thing in a Thunderbolts movie, with Anti-heroes we know only from passing from other adventures.

Like, Galactus is pretty big on the World Ending spectrum and he will be appearing in the next Fantastic Four movie. And we got Doctor Doom coming soon, who is nothing to sneeze at. Like . . . I know a dark scary shadow engulfing New York City is just a Tuesday in the MCU but come on. I don’t know, I was expecting Bob to go evil and the Thunderbolts had to get creative to beat him. But then he turns into a nightmare shadow monster and the Thunderbolts use the power of friendship, literally a GROUP HUG, to solve the problem.

This is the most shonen MCU movie I have seen thus far. LOLz.

Maybe I am getting burned out on superhero movies but I still enjoyed this stuff. And I enjoyed this movie. It was an action movie filled with laughs, fight scenes, and offered some interesting character development. For me though, the Void scenes were just there and I’m all like “Kay, that’s cool, can someone just hug these people now, cuz they need hugz”.

A lot of people are connecting with this movie, much in the same way they connected with Guardians of the Galaxy. And most people familiar with superhero movies knew that it was that kind of movie going in. For me, I got to see some obscure characters from the MCU get to shine and have a chance to show their stuff. And I had fun, which is what matters when watching one of these movies.

Oh, and about that name, Thunderbolts . . . has nothing to do with Ross or anything important to the MCU. Apparently Black Widow was on a junior soccer team and they were called Thunderbolts. But is anyone surprised that the MCU subverses expectations? How many times have we had red herrings or misdirections? I mean, the first appearance of the Mandarin from Iron Man 3 was pretty damn hilarious.

And to further subverse expectations, after the Thunderbolts save Bob and the City, De Fontaine lures them into a press conference and announces them as the New Avengers. Which, after the movie’s opening weekend, completely changes the marketing name from Thunderbolts to the New Avengers and when I heard about this I’m all like ". . . what?" This is the first insistence I can think of when a movie comes out and then changes its title after being released. Like . . . it did its job of getting me interested in what was happening in the latest MCU offering.

Well, I had fun with Thunderbolts, I wrote a “review”, which was fun in itself too. Honestly, I am more excited for Fantastic Four. There have been four movies of that superhero team and I’m hoping this one will be the movie that brings them back from the Void. Seriously, Fan4stic was a needlessly dark and weird movie. I saw that in theaters . . . and I saw the two FOX studio movies in theaters too. I only ever saw the Roger Corman movie on youtube once and it had a blurry ass resolution.

So, yeah, Thunderbolts was fun but I am more looking forward to the Fantastic Four. Why am I talking about the next MCU movie so much? Maybe it has something to do with that post-credits scene with the New Avengers being all like “that space ship has a 4 on it”. Good job, Marvel, I’m still hooked and chomping for more.

Until next time, Beware of EVIL PILLOWS!,

—BUCK

*more of a rant then any cohesive thoughts

**The New Avengers? Really? These guys? Yeah, the MCU is so screwed, Lolz.