Thunderbolts*

I'm trying to keep up with the rest of the world in regards to the kind of movies that exist in my realm of expertise (i.e. Nerd shit), so I was only about a week late on watching the Thunderbolts*. I'm getting better at it.

I'll be honest, this is not a movie I asked for from Marvel. They have been floundering since Avengers: Endgame to come up with something that will catch on. I don't know how much Thunderbolts will actually catch on, but I did enjoy it. In what is a surprising rarity for Marvel movies, it was pretty grounded and street level. If by street level we mean espionage experts that are excellent hand to hand specialists. With the exception of the Sentry showing up, the power levels of everyone remained on the same level.

Let's continue in my new format that lets me get lazy and just bulllet point shit. There are spoilers so if you didn't watch the movie, you might want to wait to read this. Unless you don't care about that sort of thing.

The GOOD (or what I loved)

• I love Florence Pugh as Yelena, the new Black Widow. I'm glad that she is the center of this movie. She is the unexpected heart and she has a personal journey that she goes through. I don't know if this is a hot take, but I like her as a Black Widow more than I ever did for Scarlett Johansen. 
• I am a sucker for team dynamics and while everyone's powersets were similar, I like the personalities bouncing off each other and how they form into a family that they all needed.
• The action was really good and didn't resort to a lot of nonsensical hero stuff (lasers shooting, flying, other super hero bullshit). Just punches, kicks and some bullets. It's why more grounded stuff like Captain America: Winter Soldier stays at the top of my list.
• David Harbour is out here living his best life and his portrayal of the Red Guardian remains fun without ever going too far.
• This movie didn't reach for it's humor like Marvel movies tend to do. They didn't beat us over the head with jokes. These heroes are all dealing with depression and they don't joke around too much about it to undercut that theme.
• They treat this team like a bunch of rag tag failures (like DC's Suicide Squad or Marvel's Guardians of hte Galaxy), but everyone here feels competent which is refreshing. I'm tired of a team full of goofballs that only get serious in the last third of a movie. 
• The movie was a respectable length and nothing felt bloated. It felt surprisingly tight.
• I'm so glad we get more Julie Louis-Dreyfuss. She's a fantastic villain in this and we even get a little more of her backstory too. 
• This movie really did a good job of showing mostly everyone's backstory and motivation so that you can buy it. I do think there was a miss here and I will list that in the next section.

The BAD (what I didn't like)

• Words cannot express how much I mega-loathe the Sentry as a character. When I heard he was going to be in this, I rolled my eyes. They did the absolute best they could. But I still hate him.
• Also, they did what they could, but I also do not like John Walker. He was always an asshole and they do their best. I'll never get past my bias against him. NEXT.
• This movie does NOTHING to explain who Ghost is. If you didn't watch Antman and Wasp, you will have no idea who she is and the movie does not hold your hand. That's certainly a choice. It's hard to buy into her motivations.
• This is nitpicky, but Marvel created this problem, so I will address it. You can't keep making these movies all interconnected and tying into one another and then NOT have no other heroes show up when a big city like New York is attacked. 90% of Marvel characters live in New York, so the fact that we don't get one cameo is a problem. 
• Why are we even bothering with Bucky as a congressman? It's a weird direction for his character at this point and doesn't add anything. 
• Look, did they fumble Taskmaster in the Black Widow movie? Yes. Was I hoping they'd do more with her? Yes. Do they? Nope. She is dispensed early and quickly and that is it. With it dies my hopes of an actual Taskmaster in this universe. To be fair, his comic book version is super goofy and trying to make that work in a movie was a reach anyway.
• I was perfectly fine with the way they called themsleves the  Thunderbolts, but when they pivot to the "New Avengers", I was not down with that. At all. I also don't feel like explaining myself.

Yes, I had a number of bad things here, but I still really enjoyed this movie in spite of my what I listed here. I found it to be surprisingly fun and I did actually enjoy it.

Sinners

I know that this is a comic blog and this movie is not technically a comic book movie. Let me break my own rules with these flimsy connections. Ryan Coogler directed Black Panther and Wakanda Forever. Michael B. Jordan was in Black Panther. Hailee Steinfeld is in the Hawkeye show and is Kate Bishop that will appear in other movies. Wunmi Mosaku was in the Loki series and the Wolverine & Deadpool as an agent of the TVA. In doing a quick scan of credits, Delroy Lindo was in a tv show, "Marvel's Most Wanted", a spinoff from the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show. So, you know... a lot of comic book ties. Justification complete!

This movie was fantastic. It was an unapologetically black movie. I'm so proud to see a movie like this doing so well. Gives me a glimmer of hope for the future as this "anti-DEI" bullshit takes a hold and manifests itself in my country. I've been thinking about this movie for days before I finally got it together and put this out. 

Anyways, lemme get to my new format to let me get my thoughts out better.

The GOOD (or what I loved)

• I want to start with the music. Music plays a very important part in this movie and it is all really good. I forgot that I liked Blues until I heard good blues music in this movie. The music in many scenes is purposeful and fits the moment in the story. I'm going to buy this soundtrack. I felt it in my soul.
• This is a gorgeous movie in the way that it's shot. Coogler had a very specific visual narrative and style to this movie that I appreciated. It made it feel classic, but also new. There is a beautiful scene in the movie where Sammie is playing his guitar and the shot swirls in and out of the dance floor. You'll know it when you see it.
• The cast is spectacular and there were no weaknesses here. I will give my flowers to Michael B. Jordan (pulling double duty), Miles Caton, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo and so many others I didn't name. There was a chemistry between the cast members.
• While the main antagonist, Remmick, is a vampire and technically the bad guy, he wasn't mustache twirling evil. He was kind of charming and he was kind of winning me over with his logic. I liked that his motivation was mostly animal instinct outside of trying to capture Sammie.
• While we're talking about Remmick, this movie dared to pose something interesting. The setting is the 1930's Jim Crow South and when Remmick poses to our main characters that they'd be better off in the post racial society of the Vampires, it made me pause. His reasoning was, humanity is not treating you well, black people, two of my new flock were actively plotting against you, so why not join us. I mean, given that offer, I might have taken him up on it.
• I Love that this took place all in one day and the stakes were just with our characters. There wasn't some grand save the world plot. Let's just make it through the night.
• I also loved that Vampires are a thing, no one spends time asking about it and they just roll with it. There wasn't some big lore dump about them. The movie doesn't treat us like we're stupid.
• As the story unfolds, Smoke and Stack have equally tragic stories and I was caught up in both of them. Yes, they wanted to make money, but they also wanted to take care of their own. As this movie showed and history taught us, no way that was going to be allowed to last.
• This movie had a slow burn with it's tension and that made for true horror. In the way that Get Out built to something, you feel that here. You're just waiting for the other shoe to drop and this movie makes you wait for it. 
• I guess Riverdancing is the dance that is used for a post racial society, huh? You know what, I'm down with that. If you've seen the movie, you'll know the scene I'm talking about.

The BAD (what I didn't like)

• This is so nitpicky. I wanted to see more of the magical herbs and spices play out in Wunmi Mosaku's character, Annie get a little more time. I was hoping she was a witch that would help fight the vampires, but it wasn't meant to be.

Don't be like me and wait too long on this movie. It is an experience and I don't use that term lightly.