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.

Captain America Civil War (2016)

Director: Joe and Anthony Russo

Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr.*, Scarlett Johannson, Sebastian Stan

Have I Seen it Before: Even after the somewhat lackluster impact of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and the incredibly frustrating Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) only months before, my appetite for superhero mega mashups had not abated.

Did I Like It: Yes…

But…

It’s worth trying to decide what the movie really is. Is it the trilogy capper of the tale of Steve Rogers (Evans) started in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). Or is it Avengers 2.5? 

I may be in the minority, but I still tend to think of it in the prior aspect. And in that respect, it largely succeeds. Cap’s idealism that was thoroughly quashed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) makes a comeback here, stronger but changed. The friendship between Cap and Bucky Barnes (Stan) comes full circle, and by the end Cap feels as if he has fully joined the world around him, even if that world has changed significantly since he first set out to find his place in it.

And yet, it’s hard to ignore the trappings of this kind of story. It’s a big, sprawling international stories. It brings characters from other franchises into the festivities. It introduces new heroes—and iconic ones, at that—into the Marvel universe. It is also a makeshift entry into the Avengers franchise.

Robert Downey Jr. brings his skills to full bear here, and it would have been iffy to not give him as much to do as this film does. Also really expensive. Tom Holland enters as a full-on delight, simultaneously channeling the essence of prime 80s-era Michael J. Fox and instantly erasing the memory of Andrew Garfield. Given the maddeningly little amount of time that we spend with Vision (Paul Bettany) and Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), it’s nice to see a little more of their awkward courtship.

So, it actually works as an Avengers film as well. I think I’ve decided that it can be both Cap film and Avengers movie, especially because it works as both. If one really needs a cohesive version of this film, it is most likely the greatest dramatization (certainly in the context of a big-budget fare) of somebody trying to introduce and assimilate their old friends to their new friends. It’s always awkward.

But ultimately, Captain America here solidifies his reputation as the secret weapon of the first three phases of the MCU. Iron Man was the face and the heart, but even he had to contend with the average quality of Iron Man 2 (2010) and the debatable quality of Iron Man 3** (2013). Thor never reached his potential until Thor Ragnarok (2017). Cap had three solid films, and each are in a particularized genre. World War II epic, mid-70s conspiracy thriller, and now 2010s Superhero event. There’s something to be said for that.

*It took me a solid minute to decide who to put in the top billing there. The film credits Evans first, and I opted to go that route, although an argument can be made in the other direction.

**For the record, I am solidly #teamironmanthree

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Director: Joe and Anthony Russo

Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johannson, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan

Have I Seen it Before: I saw it when it was released…

Did I Like It: …and I liked it so much that it almost, almost made Disney’s Marvel’s ABC’s Joss Whedon’s Agents of Shield(s) in its lurching first season. 

Marvel’s Phase Two is experimental at its core. It doesn’t experiment with form, necessarily. Every Marvel movie is exploring already well-trod territory. They are more accurately experimenting with a sustainable model for continuing making these movies. Iron Man Three (2013) would be the one exception to this idea, as it was potentially (and now clearly) the last in a series, and they could therefore afford to make a Shane Black movie masquerading as the annual May superhero tentpole. 

Thor: The Dark World (2013) and this particular film try to adopt a television model, bringing in reliable small screen directors to see if their journeymen skills can be brought to bear on a cinematically larger scale. In the case of Thor, frequent cable director Alan Taylor, and the results—while thankfully not embarrassing—do add up to a certain blandness. Here, the idea really starts to sing, as they have brought in the Russo Brothers to liven things up. At first blush, its a potentially counterintuitive idea, as they cut their teeth on multi-camera sitcoms like Arrested Development, and Happy Endings. To make the link between that work and big action movies is too much of a leap.

Except, the Russo Brothers also cut their teeth on Community. They were making big-budget spectacle at twenty-two minute stints for several years. That show was great training for this canvas, and it shows. Especially when you realize that they are the only directors from Phase II to come back and direct any more Marvel movies, Joss Whedon included.

And so, this second outing for The First Avenger operates like the bleak mix of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), that both Cap’s story and the Marvel series (this film coming fairly close to the middle of what will eventually come to be called the Infinity Saga) as a whole needs, bringing the whole thing into stark, yet, dark relief, and still acting as a pretty passable political thriller in the process.

As the film largely works, I feel I would be remiss in my role as a critic here without bringing up a few nitpicks:

~Why is the Captain America exhibit housed in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum? Like, the one time Cap notably took the helm of an aircraft, it didn’t exactly turn out so great for him. Why not the American History museum? I mean, that seems like a really easy fix.

~Shrimpy Steve Rogers—presented here in flashbacks—still doesn’t work beyond the scope of a better-than-average photoshop effort.

~I get that it serves some manner of an emotional through-line for Cap to go get his WWII uniform before the third act gets cooking, but am I honestly supposed to believe that in the middle of trying to hide from every government agency on the planet, he takes a break to enter a government facility to steal a museum piece from an exhibit that will pointedly, almost ridiculously be one of the first places the bad guys will look?