Thunderbolts : Is the Classic MCU Back?

So, I’m just coming back from my second watch of Thunderbolts, which is surprising because I wasn’t even interested for the first time. I just went there because I wanted to watch a superhero movie, and it’s finally ACTUALLY spring here in Canada, and I AM an MCU fangirl. Despite being a fangirl, I have been disappointed by the MCU for a while now. The last movie I liked from MCU was GOTG:3 and the last show I liked from them was Loki S2.

Plenty of movies and shows were released since then but none of them made me amused enough to pay a visit to the theater.

So I didn’t have much hope for this one. Additionally, the titular team or characters here weren’t really of much interest to me. I knew these are good actors, and I appreciate their work, but as a concept or as a movie, I didn’t feel much interest in this initially.

Guess what finally inspired me to go watch it.

No no, guess!

WRONG!

It was a Pitch Meeting video on YouTube from our dear old favorite Ryan George! I just clicked on it willy-nilly, just expecting a roast. But then while watching it, I was like “….oh, wait, that does sound good actually”

So then I picked a day I don’t have any shift on and booked a ticket online!

Now I am done with my second watch, and honestly? It was even better this time, cause I could focus on other things I missed the first time. And more honestly? I definitely wanna watch it for a third time too! Maybe the classic MCU of the 2012 Avengers is back? Right? God I hope so

Anyway, here are some random things I loved about this movie and wanted to talk about. Cheers!

!!SPOILER ALERT!!

1. Highlighting mental health in the coolest way

The primary antagonist of the movie – Bob – is not your usual superhero villain. He’s a very sweet and friendly guy who has been tortured in the name of experiment, much like many of our protagonists throughout the MCU. However, the way his mental health issues are portrayed so clearly and artistically throughout this entire movie and screenplay, is definitely worth a few praises. I loved every bit of it.

Especially the main climax scene, where the actual Bob is beating up the Sentry, the way the darkness from the Sentry was starting to overtake and ERASE Bob, is such a powerful metaphor of how our dark side can take us over if we give into it, if we fall for it.

And at that very moment, the Thunderbolts came in to hug him, remove the dark loneliness he was struggling with since childhood, and he could then overpower the dark shadow figure with this newfound camaraderie.

That was beautiful, and very well-executed. Lewis Pullman is a really powerful actor who effectively showcased all the nuances of his character arc in his micro-expressions. And as a random movie lover, who has to endure a lot of mediocre acting, I thank you sir :’)

2. Valentina playing her cards

Now, when Valentina first popped up at the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 4 years ago, I actually found her kinda annoying. I just felt like, oh well, here we go, another random character popping up in the MCU that I won’t care about again.

And honestly, when I saw her again on Black Widow and Black Panther, I still didn’t care. It was in fact one of the reasons why the trailer of Thunderbolts didn’t interest me.

But now, after watching this movie twice, I like her as a kind-of anti-hero version of Nick Fury. Because, yes she’s a bitch (usually), but the woman is smart! She plays her cards pretty well! Especially at the end of this movie, where she tricks the “new avengers” into showcasing themselves in front of the world, that was well-played!

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is undoubtedly a good actor, and she brings the charm to this devilish character that makes her less “hate-worthy” (that’s not a word but who cares). When she sees the Thunderbolts team coming together to flip a large ass brick (or whatever that was), and people around appreciating it, she looks at them like “huh…well… I guess this is the team then”. So, she is actually not the worst, she does wanna save the world, but she just adopts off-the-book ways to get the job done. (Right? … RIGHT?)

3. The way the villain “kills” people

The way the Sentry turns living people into just black shadows on the floor, is not just the usual evil villain-y stuff we’re used to seeing. It’s unsettling. Like, that whole human being, running away from the bad guy, desperate to save himself, just turned into a black nothing? Especially when the Red Guardian saves a little girl, and the Sentry immediately kills her after that, it hits you.

The whole visual of this abrupt way to remove people’s entire existence in less than a second – repeatedly and randomly – was an effective way to connect the audience to the horror of this particular villain. I definitely appreciated that. It reminded me of how similarly well-done GOTG:3’s villain was and that’s why it moved me back then too.

4. The team, the storytelling, and the OG Avengers vibes

Like I mentioned before, I didn’t give a shit about this team or the characters. They just existed in the MCU, they were just okay. That’s it.

But this movie made me care about them bit by bit, scene by scene, act by act. And I respect this kind of effective storytelling, without shoving any of it in our face, or relying on long lines of exposition. Neither of those things give us the time to connect to the characters, to brew up a relationship between them and us.

Kudos to the writers of Thunderbolts – they brought it back. They brought the team spirit, the storytelling, and the screenplay of the original MCU Avengers of 2012, which had a huge role to play in making the Avengers a part of our regular “must-watch” entertainment schedule.