Thunderbolts* Film SPOILER FILLED Film Review

Marvel Studios right now is having alot of ups and down as for every good movie that they release like Deadpool & Wolverine they very quickly follow it up with one like Captain America: Brave New World. With the movie that i'm going to be reviewing being a film that is slightly better then Brave New World but not by much and so then join me as I give you my SPOILER FILLED review of the film that is pretty much Marvel's answer to Suicide Squad with the film in question being called simply just "Thunderbolts*" enjoy.

The plot of this film is when a group of anti heroes find themselves being betrayed by the same person they have to team up to bring this person down once and for all. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not bad but at the same time tho it wasn't all that good either as this films plot while it was a decently done plot it was also one that was rather very thinly drawn out as well with it being hard to tell at times just what it was that the main plot of this film was even meant to be in the first place as it did seem for a little while that the characters where just doing random things not because the plot demanded that they do it but because the makers of this film didn't know what to do with them and when the plot of this film is focused on that's when the film gets to be alot of fun to watch as there is a good plot in this movie but due to it not being focused on that much it's enough to make you wonder if this film instead started out life as a Marvel Studios Special Presentation before getting shifted to being a feature length film only they instead chose not to change anything about the plot of the film as that's what this films plot feels like alot of the time with the plot of this film also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova , Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes and Wyatt Russell as John Walker / U.S. Agent. Also starring in this film is Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster , Lewis Pullman as Bob , Geraldine Viswanathan as Mel , David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian , Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr / Ghost and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra De Fontaine.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. As all of this films actors do do a really solid job in this film which is something that does make alot of sense as quite literally almost all of this films actors are reprising their roles from other Marvel Studios projects and so they would of course gave a good understanding of what kind of performance would best suit there respective characters with quite alot of them returning after sometime away from the MCU after only playing there characters once before with Lewis Pullman doing a good job as Bob something that couldn't have been easy as he's acting against people who have done other projects for Marvel Studios some as recently as last year and yet he more then holds his own when acting against them with the best actor in this whole entire film being Florence Pugh who once again shines as Yelena Belova with her more then capturing how the character is feeling at this moment in her life which is something that is quite hard to do and she manages to pull it off effortlessly with her even having alot of chemistry with both Lewis Pull and David Harbour which is something that couldn't be hard to do as the man has chemistry with anyone that he shares the screen with with the acting that's in this very film not really being helped by the fact that this films script is just so bad as it gives none of this film actors absolutely nothing to work with interms of what it is that there respective characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something that really does harm the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.

Doing the CGI for this film is Base FX , Crafty Apes , Industrial Light & Magic , Mammal Studios , Raynault VFX and Rising Sun Pictures. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad as this films effects are quite easily better then the effects that were in Black Widow with this film actually making use if more practical effects and real life locations rather than recreating them all inside of a computer which is something that does help this films VFX as it means that that the effects can now be blended in with something that was already there practically on the day of shooting while yes there will always be some level of CGI work done in any of these of Marvel films it is nice to see filmmakers take a step back from relying on effects teams to create something that would not only be cheaper to do practically but could also exist in the really world as well with it actually being hard to say just what the best effect is however it is quite easy to say just what the worst effect is in this film as this film does make use of digital doubles for it's characters alot of the time during it's action sequences and it is something that really does stand out a mile as do the rather obviously fake CGI sparks as well as they look really cartoonish and because of that they do stand out quite badly in this film.

SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!

For those of you who are unaware for a while leading up to this films release there was a lot of speculating what the asterisk in the films title could mean and if it could mean that the team name gets changed to The New Avengers. Well that rumor is actually true as right at the end of the movie Valentina Allegra De Fontaine who has kind of been both the films main villain and also the person that brought the team together as well has a press conference all set up and ready to go in the middle of New York where she introduces them as The New Avengers with the film even making sure to explain away the teams name change all throughout the film even making it a key part of Valentina scenes for this film as well as she says that she wants to bring in new heroes who can look after the world and it's people just like The Avengers used to do and given that all of the members of The New Avengers are indeed due back for Avengers: Doomsday it would be interesting to see these characters go up against the actual Avengers as while some of them have met some Avengers in other movies others really haven't and that does mean that we could have some potentially good combinations coming out of that movie but at the same time given just how many various Avengers teams that there are it does also make things complicated for the casual viewer as well as not alot of people would have heard of The New Avengers but everybody as heard of The Avengers and that is something that both The Russo Brothers and Kevin Feige will have to come to terms with.

Speaking of the mainstream audience they are not going to know alot of this films main characters as not only have alot of them just appeared in the movie and nothing more then that. Some of them got there start in and have only appeared in one show for Disney+ and the mainstream Marvel Cinematic Universe fan isn't going to sit through eight episodes of a TV show that didn't last that long just to understand the one character and this is something that's very quickly becoming a huge issue for Marvel as alot of the people that are going to see these movies now aren't people who have watched everything that Marvel Studios has put out it's the person who watched one Marvel Studios movie once a long time ago and that's it and that's partly why I called this movie Marvel's answer to Suicide Squad as not only are both teams made up of a bunch of villains but both teams are also made up of a bunch of characters that the mainstream audience isn't going to know with neither film tell you who these characters are and not giving you a reason to like them or hate them and just expecting you to know who these character because they were a main character on The Falcon And The Winter Solider a show that came out in 2021and only lasted eight episodes with this effecting alot of the films main characters as alot of them haven't been seen in the MCU since they first appeared outside of course Bucky but that's really it as even Yelena has only been two MCU projects and they were both released years ago so Marvel should have done something or put something together to make sure that the mainstream audience knew who these characters were because if not then just like with Suicide Squad this film will end up not pleasing anyone and confusing alot of the members of the mainstream audience.

If you thought that Taskmaster was done dirty in Black Widow then you've seen nothing yet as she at least appeared in quite alot of that movie. Here despite being very heavily promoted and even being fourth billed on the films poster she only appears in one scene at the start of the movie before getting killed off yes Marvel likes to lie about what's actually in there movies but that's usually because of the fact that there saving something good for the real movie here killing of a character for quite literally no reason whatsoever she she actually could have made for a decent addition to the team and actually could have had an arc where she learns to trust Yelena and given that Yelena is basically the main character of this movie that is something that would have worked in this film but now that gets thrown out of the window for no reason and what's worse is the fact that the makers of this film don't replace her character with someone better so it's the death of a main character that now has very little bearing on the plot of the movie and given the fact that not alot of people actually saw Black Widow due to it being released on Disney+ not alot of people are going to actually be pleased with this choice when the best choice that the makers of this film really could have made is to keep the character as then they could fix all of the issues that the people who did see Black Widow had with the character but because they didn't it now means that we are left with a complete and total waste of a really good and cool character and one that actually would have worked well within the confides of the MCU as a whole.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and fitty three minuets and fifty four seconds. Which is a tad bit on the long side for this film as this film really doesn't have alot of plot there to really cover that amount of running time as realistically this film only has enough plot to cover a Marvel Studios Presentation and that's really it with alot of this films running time not even being used all that wisely as this film doesn't take the advantage to flesh out it's plot to fully justify a nearly two hour running time and nor does the film take the time to fully flesh out and fix any of the characters that were done wrong in previous MCU entries as instead the makers of this film just leave them as they are and don't bother to do the work to actually fix them as heck they could have made all of this films main characters all the more likable but they don't as they don't give us a reason to actually care for these characters with the only character that the film gives us a reason to care for is Yelena and that's it and while that would have been great for a solo film it's not something that works for a team up movie and if you want a good example of this then you need look no further then 2012's The Avengers as even tho all of that films amin characters were set up in other films that still gave you a reason to care about them in this film so when it came to the third act and The Avengers are fighting a bunch of aliens in New York you want to see them succeed here tho because the makers of this film don't do that when it comes time to there big third act fight which takes place bot in the mind of Bob / Sentry and in New York it's not as impactful as it really could have been with Sentry as a character not being done all that well either as there's nothing to his personality that makes him a really memorable character in this film but I really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho. 

So now then as this is an actin film that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. With it being in this film few action scenes where this films gets to be the most fun as we get to see all of the team working together which is something that will always be super cool to see no matter who the team is and given that this team is made up of people who don't have super powers all of this films action scenes just boil down to who can hit who the hardest which yes is something that could get boring but because of the fact that this film does add in new elements each and every time it does make each new action scene seem fresh and new again with the only real issue being that there wasn't enough action scenes in this movie as it's the films action scenes that make the film really fun to watch alot of the time with the best action scene in this whole entire film being the fight between Bob / Sentry and the Thunderbolts team in Valentina's apartment which was a really fun filled scene as it gave the makers of this film a chance to show us why Sentry is a big threat and why this team of antiheroes is in big trouble as he could basically take on all of them in a fight and win without even breaking a sweat if he so chose to do so but what let's this films action down and the rest of the film down is the fact that it can't decide who the main villain of the film is as for alot of the films running time there telling us that it's Valentina which made sense but then in the third act for no rhyme or reason it switches to Sentry with this affecting the action as now us the audience have no clue on if the film if fighting the main bad guy or one of the bad guys henchmen or not in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!

Overall while this film is miles better then what Captain America: Brave New World it's still just as bland as that film was as there's nothing to this film as it's just bland and generic of a film but at the same time tho it is still a film that's at times very highly enjoyable to watch tho in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 6.5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Disney fandom wiki page , the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from the really great the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition.