Knee-jerk review: "Thunderbolts*"

1. Marvel superhero fatigue is real.  We didn't even bother with Captain America: Brave New World earlier this year.  We admire the way the Marvel overlords have skillfully created such an intricate tapestry of characters and plots and characters across so many movies and TV shows since Iron Man in 2008 (if the MCU was a person, they'd be getting ready for their senior year of high school), but at a certain point it all starts to get pretty cumbersome.  The movies are no longer just movies - they're installments that exist solely to sell the next installment.  In doing so, however, each installment runs the risk of warping under the weight of everything that's come before.
2. Exhibit A: On the way to the theater, Ms. Cheese Fry asked "Do I need to have seen anything else before I see this one?"  A fair question.  Should we really have to do homework before going to the movies?
3. Exhibit B: When it ended, the guys sitting next to us totally geeked out, excitedly chattering back and forth not about the actual movie Thunderbolts, but rather the post-credits tag scene that's pointing to a future movie.  What did that tag mean and how will it connect to everything else? 
4. There's definitely an audience for this sort of thing where movies turn into editions of comic books telling an unending soap opera-style story of deaths, resurrections, double-crosses, and new characters.  There's a lot of people out there like our seat neighbors who eat this all up.  (And full disclosure: we can be pretty irritating explaining the nerdy intricacies of Star Wars and Star Trek mythology.) But when you're making $200 million movies for wide audiences who aren't following every twist and turn on fan websites, there's going to be some risk in turning a profit.
5. But this one is pretty good.  Thunderbolts feels different, probably because these are some pretty broken - and in John Walker's case, pretty unlikable - superhero characters who have no illusion that they're on the bottom rung of hero-dom.  There's a black cloud hanging over everything.
6. If done well, team-up movies like this - where characters who hate each other form begrudging temporary alliances that soon evolve into genuine kinship and collaboration - are a whole lot of fun.
7. Lewis Pullman, the actor who plays Bob, is a dead ringer for his father, the great Bill Pullman.
8. Add Florence Pugh to the official Cheese Fry Celebrity Crush List.  Dude.  Seriously.
9. In today's bizarre political climate, it's kind of cute to see a movie portraying Washington DC and mostly functional place that tries to earnestly follow due process and tradition.
10. The ending is kind of weird, but the filmmakers earn points for dramatizing the challenges of overcoming trauma and mental illness. 
11. It's a Marvel movie with big stakes, but because it's focusing on this little dysfunctional group, the movie feels small.  (Even the big climax of New Yorkers running for cover can't really hide that it wasn't shot in New York City.)  We mean this mostly as a compliment.
12. Unless we missed it, we are happy to report there are no laser beams and energy rays anywhere to be found here.  A small victory.
13. David Harbour steals the movie.
14. Julia Louis-Dreyfus makes for a formidable villain.  Flashes that gorgeous smile while she slices your throat.
15. That Black Widow child assassin training program was really something, huh?  Yikes.
16. Let us all stipulate that with the possible exception of the third Lord of the Rings movie in 2003, no pop culture cinematic event has delivered such a satisfying punch of cathartic resolution as 2019's Avengers: Endgame.  Chef's kiss perfection.  In today's fractured culture, we can't imagine anything ever matching that.

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