This evening over dinner Mrs. Graybeard and I did something we haven't done in quite a while. We used our streaming subscription to Disney+ to watch a movie we didn't catch in the theater, the new Marvel Cinematic Universe movie based on characters that have been cast since the Infinity War, and End Game movies about Thanos killing half of humanity. It's called Thunderbolts: The New Avengers.
If you've been a reader for a while, you know I like movies that aren't serious human drama. I had enough Shakespeare in school and enough real life drama years ago. No typical, Hallmark-channel, romantic comedies, and not much in the way of dramas that don't involve sci fi, whether that means a super hero movie or some programmed super soldier like a Jason Bourne. As a general rule, I've liked comic book movies, although I've liked the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) more than the DC movies.
I've said many times that Thor: Ragnarok has been my favorite of the Marvel movies and just tons of lighthearted fun - for a topic as serious as the end of the world for Thor's planet, Asgard. There really hasn't been one that I think unseats Ragnarok, but that's not to say none of the newer MCU movies have been enjoyable or fun.
With a couple of exceptions, all of the characters in Thunderbolts are familiar from other theatrical movies or streaming series in the last few years and of those exceptions only one major character is completely new addition to the MCU. The main characters are Yelena Belova played by Florence Pugh a role she first played in Black Widow, Bucky Barnes by Sebastian Stan, Alexei Shostakov who is Yelena Belova's father played by David Harbour, John Walker by Wyatt Russell, and Ava Starr by Hannah John-Kamen. All of these actors/characters have been in at least a few movies except I think Hannah John-Kamen was only in one movie, Ant Man and the Wasp (AKA Ant Man 2) as someone who could slip between universes. The one completely new major character is Robert Reynolds (pretty much just called "Bob") played by Lewis Pullman.
Without getting into too much detail the movie is about them coming together to form a new team. All of them have problems they need to work with (or around). All of them talk about depression and the hard, lonely lives they find themselves in. They have a big problem to solve, caused by another actor and character in previous movies, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus a Washington DC insider who's trying to get more power for herself by using other people.
The main "New Avengers" from a publicity shot. Left to right: Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen), Bob Reynolds (Lewis Pullman), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan)
Image credit: Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhile the movie had its opening in theaters in the June time frame, and played in theaters for a while, I don't know if it was considered a success. ScreenRant considered it one of the 10 best movies of '25, with most of the year past. Like I said, we watched this on Disney+ which is part of our streaming service, Hulu, so it was no money out of pocket to watch. We're paying for these things no matter what. To my mind it was a respectably good movie and like the writer at ScreenRant, I think it's evidence Marvel movies have recovered. I'll grade it a B.
no sir disney will never get one cent of my money- never
ReplyDeleteYou'll note there is no mention of the word endorsement, nothing saying, "go see it," or anything of the sort. Just that I saw it and thought it was OK. Literally worth every penny you paid for it.
DeleteMy favorite is the first Iron Man movie.
DeleteI saw Thunderbolts courtesy of Southwest Airlines. I thought it was okay, better than many Marvel movies, but not great. Definitely glad I didn't pay to see it ... or at least not directly, anyway.
To be honest, I question myself on that line that Thor: Ragnarok was the best, probably because I've seen it nine million times now, while the reaction was from seeing it the first time in the theater. Seriously, it seemed like it was on every weekend until recently. I guess the big picture is the one everyone knows: the first phase MCU movies or the phases through the Infinity War/End Game were better. Better stories and better story-telling.
DeleteThere are people who say that Stan Lee passing away and not providing a "voice of sanity" anymore is what damaged the MCU, and while it strikes me as part of the story, it's probably not the whole story.
The end of the credits teaser for the next movie looked interesting, though. We know there's another New Avengers movie in the works with the same basic cast of Avengers.
Agreed, that Ragnarok was the best of that series. Overall, a terrific batch of films, with a few stinkers. I lost interest after "End Game", which I thought was, despite the production values, not very good. It was too long, probably because of needing to tie up a lot of loose ends, at which it failed. But the "deus ex machina" aspect of using time travel to fix things really put me off. The Rocket origin story was a real stinker.
ReplyDeleteSo, yeah, I lost interest. I still re-watch some of them, when I'm in the mood for some good escapist entertainment. "Age of Ultron" is worth it just for Zola's description of Hydra's long-term plan, and Roger's initial reaction to Project Insight.
- jed
"Thunderbolts" - my mind immediately went to "Thunderbirds", which is quite a different thing, but oddly enjoyable.
I find these movies to be childish and mind bendingly politically correct. Compared to a James Bond movie where the women are seductive and the men are masculine these movies always give the women the masculine roles in ways that defy belief and make the men seductive semi-queer or even non-binary man buns.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. They're clearly completely different genres: spy movies are pretty much always a retelling of the 1960s James Bond stories while superhero movies are a bit less sterotyped: that is, they're not all retelling the 1960s Superman movie, although some are. The MCU is more heroes like Spiderman, a kid who accidentally acquires super powers but is still an insecure teenager at heart. They're pretty much all uncomfortable with having unusual powers.
DeleteCan't say I can recall anyone with a man bun. Not even Jason Mamoa (Aquaman) who wears one in real life. My wife's dream is to cruise the world with hedge trimmers looking for man buns to cut off.
Well, de gustibus non disputandum, as Cicero said to Caesar. Personally, I've always wondered why Hollywood, especially with modern CGI, doesn't mine the huge volume of classic science fiction. Yes, they've made and remade _Dune_ and that's great, but how would you like to see Larry Niven's _Ringworld_ brought to the screen: a structure the size of Earth's orbit, complete with human variants, Kzinti, and Puppeteers? Or for an action-adventure thriller with an alien menace, _The Mote in God's Eye_? Or, for an alien invasion story, _Footfall_? You could make a great series out of Poul Anderson's Trouble Twister stories -- humans and aliens working together as galactic traders. The list is essentially endless. Great writing, great stories, all ready-made. There's something for everybody -- Zelazny's _Lord of Light_, which is based on Hindu mythology, would be ideal for Bollywood!
ReplyDeleteOf course one caveat is that you would hope that Hollywood wouldn't butcher the source material, as Verhoeven did with _Starship Troopers_ (deliberately, I gather). I'd love to see an honest remake of that, or maybe Marko Kloos' _Frontlines_ series which in many ways is an homage to Heinlein.
I could go on, but you get the point.
We, too, love Hallmark and Great American Families movies. For the same reason we keep watching Fred Astaire movies. Happy predictable movies with good writing (and in the case of FA, great music and great acting.) You have to kind of pick and choose, but it's easy to weed out the good ones from the bad.
ReplyDeleteAs to movies, we've surpassed 1200 titles (which also include tv series we love, like the original Magnum PI and such.)
We only have 2 'Supes' movies, which don't get watched really. The early ones, like Thor, are nice, but the later ones get too convoluted and the action happens so fast we end up doing stop and start to figure out what's going on.
Rather watch "Nobody" again. Or my favorite, "Renfield" which sets me to giggling as it is everything that an experienced Dungeons and Dragons (old school, not the woke barf-ist version of today) would expect from a vampire. (Serious recommendation. Violence is a tad high, Nicolas Cage makes an awesome Dracula, but otherwise it's a good action/comedy/horror movie.)
We both enjoyed "Thunderbolts". (And we are of the age to also remember Thunderbirds)
ReplyDeleteWe'd seen Wyatt Russell in the scifi horror movie "Overlord" and thought he did a good job.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4530422/?ref_=nm_knf_t_3
Thor: Ragnarok. We agree, and have watched it a number of times.
Beans.
We enjoyed "Renfield" and would watch it again.