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Rated Thunderbolts* 7/10

I was an avid Marvel Comics fan from 5th grade to some point a bit past college, roughly mid-90s to late-00s. So the cinematic 21st Century has been a bit of a rollercoaster of watching some of my favorite fictional characters on the big screen, first as cinematic novelties, then as the dominant blockbuster genre, and then rapidly into a more miss than hit IP conveyor belt. Of that latter era Thunderbolts ranks as "above average". Stylistically the movie is half Guardians of the Galaxy (first one), half Captain America: Winter Soldier. Action sequences were well done, though the hand-to-hand combat was better than the more superhero-y fights. The humor was not bad, only a couple times did it get a little too Whedonesque banter. And the casting was pretty solid; Though seeing Wyatt Russell in something like this only serves as a reminder of Lodge 49 being cut short. As a comics fan from way back I was mostly curious how they were going to approach the concept of the Thunderbolts. Would they go for the more interesting original iteration of known villains hiding in plain sight as "new" heroes, or would they keep going back to the well of Suicide Squad knock-offs that have been more common under that title. In the end I found this approach to be smart; just have a bunch of secondary and tertiary characters who you don't need to know much about follow a less flashy version of the Avengers origin. If all the new Marvel stuff was at least as good as Thunderbolts we would be pretty happy with the franchise. Oh well, at least this one was fun.

#movie

Published 2026-02-07 03:30 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere