The Stream: Some acting leaves a bit to be desired.

The Big Screen: A couple nice action sequences and a pretty good humanizing story.

The Final Bill: A redemption storyline spread throughout action marred by some spotty acting.

– S2S: Movie Review
Director: Jake Schreier
Writers: Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo, Kurt Busiek
Stars: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Crime, Fantasy, Sci-fi
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2 hours 6 minutes (if you stay through the credits)
Production Companies: Marvel Studios, South Australian Film
Platform: Released in theaters May 2, 2025
Notable Trailers: Mission Impossible: Final reckoning, Karate Kid: Legends, Megan 2.0, F1, How to train your dragon, Predator: Badlands, Tron: Area, Fantastic Four: First Steps

Welcome back, Streamers! This weekend brought about the long-awaited and over-marketed, Thunderbolts*. This movie follows a ragtag bunch of misunderstood anti-heroes that after being tricked to try to kill each other, find themselves having to team up for a dangerous mission that will make them confront their darkest secrets. MCU antihero hijinks ensue.

So, this movie is one of those films that received a lot of strong reviews but after watching it, I don’t know whether I liked it or not. I think viewers will come out seeing the good of the movie while also questioning “was that movie good though?”. The things that really work in this film is the backstory and humanizing storytelling. The MCU has been pretty good about that over the last decade. This movie is nothing different. This movie is full of side characters that no one fully cares about, except Bucky, and he’s not at all the focus of the film. Been there, done that. Yet, by the end of the movie, the filmmakers have found a way for the viewer to relate and/or care about the “demons” these characters are overcoming. That’s very telling in the care taken to produce and direct this movie. This movie was not flawless even in the storytelling but ultimately, the story told has depth to it and was displayed well.

Now, the knock on the movie is the acting, and or writing, at times is really poor. Between the fake accents, repetitive jokes, and blank stare moments, the movie honestly gets a bit long in the tooth. But if the viewer just holds on long enough in those moments, they will pass and you’ll get back in a sweet action pocket. And this is probably the reason why someone might say I need to see this again. Were those moments that bad in retrospect or was I just hyper-focused on the action of it all?

Long story short, Thunderbolts* has us quite on the edge between ratings. All MCU movies are worth being seen on the big screen and this is no different. The movie seamlessly wanders between good and mediocre parts effortlessly. Whether it was the nice action scenes giving way to the often-blank face acting of it all, the movie entertains the viewer. This is a movie that you probably want to see twice just to make sure it was as good or bad as you thought it was. Grab a bowl of popcorn and check out Thunderbolts* but make sure you’re emotionally grounded before it strikes.