Thunderbolts* (2025)

Director: Jake Schreier

Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko

Have I Seen It Before: Nope! Honestly, I was going to take a pass on this one. I’ve already missed so much of the post-Avengers: Endgame (2019) films and series. I still haven’t seen Black Widow (2020), and the ads on this one were insisting I’d be lost without having an encyclopedic knowledge of the Multiverse Saga. After my favorite theater wasn’t going to run this one**—that being the main reason I caved and saw Captain America: Brave New World (2025)—that would probably be it.

And then the reviews came back. It isn’t bad? All of these people are going to show up for the forthcoming Avengers: Doomsday***? Ok, fine.

That’s the spirit to start the summer movie season, right?

Did I Like It: More than a little bit, I’m glad to report. Injecting an actual theme into the proceedings help. It may be a bit on the thin side—making the sordid past and healing from that past the fundamental fuel of whatever CGI kaleidoscope is to follow—but it is at least something. Name for me the theme of, say Brave New World****. I’ll wait.

Sure, there’s the kind of table-setting that can drag down even some of the earlier films, and the second act flies on autopilot to the point I did not fear a nap in the middle of the movie if it were to come for me. But, you want to know the most solid praise I can give this film.

After five years, I finally want to go watch Black Widow. Maybe there is hope for Marvel yet.

*This movie came directly for the Party Now, Apocalypse Later style guide, didn’t it?

**I’ve got more than a few things to say about Disney’s theatrical distribution model, but those will probably have to wait for some other blog post.

***A film I’m feeling obligated to see, if for no other reason than I need to bear witness to just what Robert Downey, Jr. is thinking—beyond, you know, money—coming back to the fold when he was right on the verge of re-inventing himself with Oppenheimer (2023).

****And no, “what happens when the President turns into a Hulk monster in the middle of a Rose Garden press conference” does not count as a theme.

Quantum Of Solace (2008)

Director: Mark Forster

Cast: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: But I only think I’ve seen it once in the theater, and then again when I acquired the DVD*. That’s telling. It is a step down from the absolute transcendence that was Casino Royale, and it’s storyline is all afterthought material from that preceding film. The Bond films have quite rightly not needed to feed into material from the previous film, and even only occasionally tried to have any kind of continuity at all. The best Bond films are so fully themselves that the confidence of the filmmakers and the confidence of the main character fuse into one entity. 

Also, the successor to Royale may have always been doomed to be a letdown simply because it follows what might very well be the best films of their series, see Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), The Dark Knight Rises(2012), or Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) for other examples.

But, as with all of those perfectly fine films above, this film probably gets an objectively bad rap. The direction from Mark Forester, then most famous for Stranger Than Fiction (2006), brings a precise visual scheme to the proceedings makes this look like no other Bond film before or since. Also, while the story is beholden to another movie, it definitely taps into that pure Fleming essence that Craig has tapped into so thoroughly. And I love the opening titles and theme song. That alone can go a long way towards leading me to feel more favorable about a particular Bond outing.

Were this an entry in any other Bond actor tenure (including Sean Connery) it would have been one of the best Bond films of all time. Sadly, it must become Craig’s weak link. One movie would have to be, and if this is the nadir, Craig’s status as the greatest since Connery will stand for all time.

*You can tell (minus the weird exception of Diamonds are Forever (1971)) which Bond films I enjoy the most by which I own on blu-ray. Casino Royale (2006), Skyfall (2012), From Russia With Love (1963), A View To A Kill (1985). This one I only have on DVD.