Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton
Week of April 28, 2025
Thunderbolts*
Rated PG-13 for some drug references, language, some suggestive references, strong violence, and thematic elements
Rotten Tomatoes: None at time of writing
In Theaters
In this latest Marvel flick, CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus doing her best Tulsi Gabbard impersonation) attempts to eliminate a group of lone mercenaries who work for her, including Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) by having them kill each other while thinking they are on a special mission. But when the survivors realize what is going on, they team up, along with a random guy they found named Bob (Lewis Pullman), as well as Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and Red Guardian (David Harbour), in order to find Valentina and bring her to justice. But what none of them know is that Bob carries a secret that even he is unaware of. One that could wreak destruction on the planet. Marvel appears to be reaching when it comes to their once-dominant place in the box office. First, their whole Kang the Conqueror storyline was brought down by bad movies and a star who they couldn’t work with any longer. Now, with the exception of the Deadpool & Wolverine triumph, we are getting lame heroes and anti-heroes, and mediocre villains in a meta-story that looks largely unfocused. The action is decent, with several exciting fight sequences to propel the story forward, but the way their narrative is resolved could have used a big rewrite. What came across the most was the theme of depression, which made the movie interesting, but also quite a downer. While Red Guardian added a bit of humor, this film needed a huge infusion of laughter, which unfortunately wasn’t present in large enough quantities. I also am not fond of an over-powered, yet boring villain, which is very much what we get here in Sentry. There is absolutely no way these heroes can fight him, so we get a very un-Marvelesque finale. This is probably why Disney is trying to promote it as being like an A24 film, which honestly is one of the strangest movie campaigns I’ve ever seen. Ultimately, just like Captain America: Brave New World, this probably should have been a straight to streaming project, or maybe limited series, as it doesn’t deliver on screen what Marvel has been consistently delivering until this latest phase. C+