Transcript
Speaker: This is food. This is beans. one at So Thunderbolts, Adrian, what did you think of the new Marvel Cinematic Universe movie following a misfit band of characters, including John Walker, played by Wyatt Russell.
Speaker: We got Hannah John Common, played by, oh, sorry, playing Ghost. Common? I believe feel like it's Cayman. Pretty sure it's Common. You look it up. And then... the And then yeah it's ah Florence Pugh's character, Yelena Belova.
Speaker: and then Alexi Red Guardian, dude. what I don't know Alexi's last name, but David Harbour in it as well, which is excellent. And of course, Sebastian Stan playing Bucky Barnes, a.k.a.
Speaker: Winter Soldier. They all come together and they're going to potentially save the world. What did you think of this of this film?
Speaker: Hannah John Kamens. What's up? What's up? I don't think that's correct. Shout out to me. i don't think it's right. Shout to me. Sorry, are you trusting Google? Yeah. Okay. They never get anything wrong, Simon.
Speaker: But no, I thought this movie was really good, man. I thought it was, I would go as far as to say that this movie was great. It is, um, yeah, just following this ragtag group of people shouldn't be getting along, but somehow they work well together.
Speaker: Not exactly, but it it is, it's, it's a unique Marvel movie. I feel like it doesn't really follow any typical Marvel formula. It feels like it takes place in the universe and fits in very well without relying on everything else that is happening before it or after it or around it.
Speaker: Um, i I thought it was really good. A little bit. and Yeah, but at least all the characters are from literally something else. None of them are introduced except for one guy. Pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, i guess so. But you know what I mean? Like you can go into this and just kind of enjoy it for what it is, is my point. um I think it's, yeah, well shot, well directed. um I think the cast is...
Speaker: really great and they have great chemistry. I love like John Walker as a character. i think why Russell plays him incredibly well. Florence Pugh is a ah delight. Like she's amazing in everything she's in. And I really like watching her in this.
Speaker: um And David Harbour is genuinely hilarious in this movie. Like I was geeking out multiple times. His his portrayal of Red Guardian is is up there. But again, I don't think there's necessarily a weak link in that main cast of characters. No. Other than I guess I could say like Taskmaster is the weakest link.
Speaker: um You know, part of that. forgot to mention. Yeah, part of that gang of Thunderbolts. um We do get a definitive answer as to what happens to Taskmaster. I'm excited to get into that with you, Simon.
Speaker: Right. Because it's not what... some people may expect, honestly. Right. Of course. And yeah, like, ah I really enjoyed this, man. I think it, I think it's awesome. And again, it's very like actually,
Speaker: emotional like it kind of got me at a couple points it deals with like depression um and drug addiction in a in a way that is kind of interesting to be you you know put into like a mcu movie which is usually like woohoo quippy quippy quippy and this one doesn't really follow that same formula um Yeah, I think this is great. And it's kind of nice to have an MCU movie again that's kind of like a return to form um and something that's good. And I'm hoping that this is the start of getting some consistently good MCU movies as opposed to you never know what you're going to get yeah know these days with like Ant-Man, Quantumania, the Marvels, Captain America, the fourth Captain America. It's it's Sam now.
Speaker: um you know it's It's just so inconsistent, and i'm I'm hoping we can finally find some consistency in these, not only the releases, but just the universe as a whole. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. That's fair. I would agree. I think Florence Pugh is a standout, personally. I think she's the biggest standout of this movie in general. But i it's these characters are so lovable.
Speaker: And as you said, it like this movie made me very emotional, but it's like it's got a serious emotional resonance throughout. I thought it was... i don't know. I think it's excellent.
Speaker: It's one of my favorites. It's at least the top third of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yeah. um Set of movies for sure. I also think Julia Louise Dreyfus is really great as well.
Speaker: um But yeah, it's it's great. I wonder if the trailer revealed too much though. Speaking of trailers earlier that revealed too much, I'm curious about what you thought about that. I don't know why I felt like that, but the more the movie went on, I was kind of waiting for certain scenes that I remembered in the trailer and it kind of bothered me.
Speaker: It's like, this is maybe a, think a consequences of us being too tuned into it on a consistent basis, which is kind of, kind of crappy, I suppose. But,
Speaker: Yeah, I get where you're coming from there. i think the trailer did a good enough job kind of rearranging scenes from the movie, but it does show a lot of things from the latter half of the film.
Speaker: um But I don't necessarily think it like fully reveals the story and and kind of the outcome. i I do think like them doing that big Avengers ah Doomsday cast reveal did this movie a disservice in the sense of literally all of those characters are back in the next movie.
Speaker: So it gets rid of this sense of like worry for the characters that there are still surprises, which again, we'll get into, but I found myself kind of like, Oh yeah, everyone's going to be fine. because they're in the next one.
Speaker: Cause we already know this, right? Whether it's announced for doomsday. Yeah. Yeah, whether it's the same character or a different version of them, we don't know for sure. um But again, you can kind of make assumptions based on that. So I do feel um like that is kind of shitty. But I think the MCU is on such a low, especially after Captain America, the the fourth one.
Speaker: I forget the name. I literally cannot remember Brave New World. Yeah. um And I think they needed something to drum up hype again about this movie.
Speaker: um And I don't know if it's going to work fully. Like, I know you mentioned had $11 million dollars opening. Cool. um For the first night. But like, again, our theater was more than half empty, which is crazy for an MCU movie on opening night.
Speaker: Like, I was worried that we wouldn't get tickets, but like I bought tickets only a couple days prior. And there was literally only like eight other seats sold. It's not a good example, though, because I don't know if we talked about this before, but the theater near us, we've got two theaters, one of them flooded.
Speaker: And that flooded theater, people probably still don't know it's open, dude. It's just like not ah's not open according to... That theater has not been busy every time we've gone. We've gone there three three times, I think, or twice. Definitely for warfare.
Speaker: and this Yeah, it wasn't busy both times. we We were there on the weekend, pretty much, and it won for a preview. so And Woodlawn, like the Woodlawn Theater was incredibly busy for... For the Minecraft movie. I don't know. I think... I have a feeling people just didn't know this is out or something along those lines. But $10 million, $11 million dollars to start for a $70 million dollars expectation is not bad at all.
Speaker: I don't know. That seems like it's going to hit. ah but But we'll see. I hope so. I hope so. Like, I hope this movie does well because I don't want them to get the wrong idea um because I like this cast of characters. I want to see this cast of characters return and follow have incredible chemistry. group It's definitely...
Speaker: Yeah, it's very very good. The chemistry is really solid. And again, what you talked about earlier is like the the idea of dealing with mental health in such a serious way and in a Marvel movie, I think is pretty awesome.
Speaker: And they took some big swings for sure. I think that Jake Schreier, the director, who's the director of Beef, honestly, anything that that that guy throws at me at this point, like anything he makes, I'm i'm going to watch, I think.
Speaker: i anyway You'll eat. and I didn't say cooks. Well, he makes, you'll eat, he did beef. Come on, man. Oh, he did beef. Come on, man. All right. ah I'll explain things for you. e yeah i knew it wait Hold on a second. Are you in the dark?
Speaker: Are you sitting in the dark? Yeah, it's been getting darker here. do you have a light on at all? or You know you're on camera, right? you're doing Your camera's not good enough for this shit. it was it was like It was bright, but we're recording and the sun has been setting.
Speaker: Yeah, okay. Let's see. Prep your environment before you record. Oh, Jesus Christ. Flash banged myself, dude. What is that? Is that ah like a ring light? ring light.
Speaker: You have a ring light? I didn't know that. Yeah. Okay. You want me to send you a picture of it? No, I'm good. i'm um No, I'm i'm good. like What is this advertisement? I'll send that to you.
Speaker: You're advertising PlayStation while we're recording. Okay. You gave me this, Simon. Yeah, I did. Because you're a nice friend. But yeah, lovable characters. I thought the one of the stunts is excellent. The one that they advertised before the movie happened as well.
Speaker: I will say the my one negative that I would like to point out as I feel like they still don't got the power metrics down down ah down pat for the freaking MCU. don't know why this is a problem. Not that complicated.
Speaker: Just hire a guy. Hire one man to deal with this. It's not that difficult. Kevin Feige. Hello, buddy. Just figure this out. It's very annoying. Every single movie is going to be like this. They have the one of the biggest Temple movies coming out in Doomsday. They've got so many characters in that.
Speaker: I think the Russo brothers know what they're doing, so they're not going to make this mistake. But this is a serious issue at this point because they so keep making the same mistake every time. but But yeah, I really like this movie a lot.
Speaker: Yeah, okay. you want to move on? Yeah, I mean, one thing that we can talk about is, you know, we got to the theater. It was supposed to be a three-dimensional movie. Yeah. And we're sitting in the theater. We got our 3D glasses and we sit down.
Speaker: It says, put on your 3D glasses. Yeah. And we're like ah minute, maybe two minutes into the movie, and I'm sitting there and I i pulled down my glasses. I'm like, it's not 3D. I turned to our good pal, Ken, who came with us.
Speaker: I said, Ken, it's not in 3D. You want to take off your glasses just so I'm not crazy? Yeah. Then he takes off his glasses. Then you take off your glasses. And I kept on looking around the theater. And ah most people kept their glasses on for the vast majority of the movie.
Speaker: Eventually, like about the halfway point, I started noticing fewer and fewer glasses on. think people were cluing in. Yeah. But I felt bad because it was like the end of the day, like, the you know, the only showing of that movie. And we left.
Speaker: And like, we ah you know, you're we had to tell the manager. It's like, hey, man, like. The 3D is off. You should check it out for the future. I really just, I bought a large popcorn. They're doing the free popcorn refill. So I wanted to my popcorn refill.
Speaker: But yeah, like we were going to tell him. And then we got complimentary movie tickets. Yeah. Because of that. That was not my goal. I just wanted him to to to turn it on for the next showing. I just wanted popcorn.
Speaker: We got free movie tickets. That's what we're using awards fantastic for now. We got our fantastic four tickets purchased. already did it. You already did it. No. and I don't know if you can use those tickets for that.
Speaker: It's just a piece of paper. There's a coupon code. and Oh, there is? Oh, maybe they then it can be used online. Okay. That's what Ken said. understand corrected. That's what Ken said. i'm going to believe Ken. i don't know. I didn't try it, actually.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's not going to be a problem in every other theater. It's just some something in this theater. And this is probably because, again, they just opened, and there's there's growing pains for them to... for this reopening.
Speaker: So that's kind of the issue in the theater we went to, but that was kind of nice that we got the the tickets. It's kind of good, but yeah, hopefully they fix it for the next one. Cause that was the flattest 3d movie I've ever watched. That's for sure.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. That was good. That was a good one, dude. That good. Yikes. Okay. All right. Let's move on now. Adrian. To spoilers, let's spoil this baby. Let's spoil Thunderbolts asterisk.
Speaker: And I'm just gonna, just gonna... ah bow down to you and just throw it to you because i know there's something you've been wanting to say for a long time yeah there's something you're you're like ah this character is not around what's happening you've said this every week for like to me for like the last five weeks every time we see the thunderbolts trailer in a movie before the the movie airs you say this so just just take it away yeah taskmaster's fucking dead dude she dies actually like shockingly early i knew she was gonna die i did not expect her to die that quickly like within the first 10 minutes of the movie literally it was kind of disrespectful i think it yeah it was it was shocking it's yeah she just gets shot in the fucking face by ghost just yeah out of nowhere you win though you win okay you win god damn it
Speaker: Oh goodness. Oh my goodness, dude. Yeah, it it was pretty shocking. But I was sitting there thinking like it is kind of a waste, man. Like this is a cool character. Yeah, you could use and in in other movies, even like just put that character in like a Spider-Man movie.
Speaker: Like that'd be cool. ah Yeah. Something more. because i'm thinking about Spider-Man, like the PS4 game. the yeah The first one, there's like those taskmaster missions. Those are cool. I feel like you could have done a lot with this character. But yeah, no, they just headshot at her in the first like 10 minutes. The movie was crazy.
Speaker: When I have it, i was like holy shit. She literally like takes off her mask and she's like, I'm not here for you. And then, boom. Just headshot by ghost. It was cool. i I do like the the almost level of like brutality in these people. Like they're all murderers.
Speaker: They're not like trying to, you know, like they don't view themselves as heroes, at least ah in the beginning. and Other than John Walker, I would say. Right. Who thinks that he's like a good guy, even though he kind of sucks and literally murdered someone in broad daylight.
Speaker: And I do like that they reference those past situations and just are assholes to one another. I think that goes very well. um Again, like you said, the chemistry is very good in the movie. um But yeah, I think this movie did like a couple of shocking things. And I think, yeah, again, the most shocking one is something that already knew about. And it's that Taskmaster gets shot in the fucking face.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, there's also the fact that they're the new Avengers. That was probably the most shocking thing for me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting choice. I love it, though. I love the gag of it.
Speaker: I just think it's great. and yeah I also really like Julia Louise Dreyfus and the fact that she got out of that situation somehow so masterfully. It's great. She's a really manipulative character who's always really happy.
Speaker: She's the happiest villain in the MCU. She's just always manipulating people in the most cheerful way possible. um What's her name? Allegra de Fontaine. What's her first name? Do you remember? Allegra seems right.
Speaker: No, it's not. Allegra's the middle name. Anyway, it's Delfontaine, okay? Valentina? It's not fence, it's defense. Yeah. It's Valentina, right? Valentina.
Speaker: Yeah. I love her. um But yeah, she's really great. I thought she was awesome in the whole thing. And I thought the new Avengers thing is an interesting spin. And I feel like it has more.
Speaker: and I know you were saying that you don't need this movie for the rest of the MCU or you don't need the rest of the MCU for this movie necessarily. But I feel like this movie had bigger implications by far than Cap 4. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, 100%. Because they left something... Right. They referenced events of other movies, but they also they take everything that happens at the end. By the end of it, there's a fundamental change in the MCU, which I really appreciate. It reminds me of like Winter Soldier had like major implications for the rest of the MCU.
Speaker: And it showed in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show, actually, in a way. Although i don't know that ended up not being canon, which sucks. But if I recall correctly, right they they said the Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show wasn't canon after.
Speaker: Wasn't that what they said? I don't think they said that, did they? They put that on the outskirts, I think. that And that's why i didn't finish it. It's been a while. um but But yeah, with the despite that, there there was like the fact that they made them the new Avengers and they that end credit scene, by the way, that end credit sequence, where or not end credit scene, but the end credits in general, where they were showing off like ah concept art for the, for the movie. And they had like John Walker riding his bent shield.
Speaker: I thought it was hilarious. There was like a lot of really cool, like headlines there from newspapers, people doubting that they could possibly be the new Avengers, which I appreciate as well. um But yeah.
Speaker: so So, yeah, that part is really neat. And yeah we found out what the asterisk is, I guess. either I thought the asterisk throughout the movie was that it's Shane's Electronics, sponsored by Shane's Electronics, because it's an asterisk.
Speaker: Yes. Or whatever the other sponsorship that they were confused with. They were confusing two different sponsorship sponsorships. One was Shane's Electronics, and then the other, i don't remember the other one. But then the asterisk, I guess, could be actually they're the new Avengers.
Speaker: Yeah. I guess I like the scenes of change change Avengers change electronics thing. It's funnier, but yeah. yeah yeah yeah Also girl pooped midfield.
Speaker: So yeah, that was funny. yeah There's a lot of really good jokes in the movie. And again, I think David Harbour's delivery on a lot of them is is really great. Amazing. No, it's David Harbour and Florence Pugh show in a large way, especially Florence Pugh, which I think the movie is largely focused on. It starts with her. She jumps off a building, the second tallest building in the world that she did for real is a stunt.
Speaker: That's pretty awesome. And um yeah, yeah. I think that they, especially their emotional scene in like the, about the three quarter way mark in the movie.
Speaker: I think that was really, I teared up multiple times watching this, honestly. i I don't know if you did as well, but I did i just found it, I don't know, very relatable. I've been, I feel like I've been struggling with my mental health too. So like on a relatability perspective,
Speaker: with Bob's character and seeing how that works. But yeah all of them jump yeah, we're kind of jumping the gun here. So like the the premise of the movie is Valentina Fontaine. She's like in Congress and then she has like a, ah I mean, this is a spoiler cast, but yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, like like she has a separate company and pretty much she sends the the cast of characters into like the final area that she's planning on essentially incinerating with all the evidence of, you know, all the illegal shit that she's been up to.
Speaker: And when the cast gets there, she tells each of them that they have to kill one another, but they don't know that's the case. She promises them things. And that's why Ghost shoots Taskmaster in the face.
Speaker: And when they're in this building, I guess, deep underground, Bob is there and he falls out of a coffin, like ah essentially. And they find out that, you know, ah Valentina, she's been doing this thing called the Century Program and and just testing on human beings. Bob was this guy that was in Malaysia. That's like a former meth addict that like deals with like bipolar disorder, I think. like He's a meth addict?
Speaker: Yeah. They said meth? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I don't remember them saying, mentioning what drug you was he was taking at any point. Yeah, when he's with the when he talks about when he's in the chicken suit, how he's on meth, like so ah flipping signs and stuff.
Speaker: Oh, interesting. Yeah, they they mentioned that twice. So he's like a drug addict. So again, they deal with like pretty deep, you know, things and and how he's struggled with mental health. So Long story short, you know, they they find him and they escape from this building.
Speaker: um And Valentina, you know takes Bob and tells him like, hey, you're special. You know, there's something inside you. I see the greatness. And then he becomes Sentry. And this is kind of what you were talking about, where the power dynamic changing.
Speaker: is wild because he is essentially the power of Superman um fighting these people that are, I think in in the world, like all we are in, in their words, they say like, all we do is shoot people.
Speaker: Um, and for, you know, he's, he's pulling his punches when he's fighting them, but it still is like pretty brutal. Um, and yeah, like, again, he's like struggling with his like darker half and he ends up being, I guess the villain, the void as well. And like, he's like takes over the world and the, the, the, the effects of the void is really cool. How he's essentially just this black outline of a person with these creepy ass eyes.
Speaker: was like, that's really awesome, dude. I thought that was fantastic. He's like the absence of light. Like he absorbs all. It seems like that's kind of the idea of of the way it's built. It's almost, it's more than an outline. It's pretty good CG. Solid.
Speaker: Yeah, I really liked it. And again, it's, it's essentially like, you know, that his darker half that he's been pushing down, that's become like the void inside of him. um And I do really love that. Essentially the power of friendship saves the day.
Speaker: like stop him from like killing a bunch of people and destroying New York City. They just tell him, like hey, you're not alone, man. We love you. We're going to be your friends. It's intriguing because its it in some ways this movie is following in a in the footsteps of... It's almost... Not a parody of it, but it's it's it's almost the Marvel formula in exactly the way we describe the Marvel formula.
Speaker: This idea of it's Bob's origin story and he's this... broken person who's thrust into this leadership position that he's not ready for. And he's really reluctant and he doesn't want to do it. And just like Iron Man, Ant-Man, Black Panther, it's the same kind of story.
Speaker: And they get get to the point where he's fighting his own demons. And in Iron Man, he fights a guy who's like himself to fight his own demons. He literally fights himself. His own demons is what he's fighting, literally.
Speaker: That metaphor is really cool. I thought that was really neat. um Yeah, it's it's such an interesting moment. And then, of course, they solve it by but the hug aspect of it, which is, I don't know, it's just something really heartfelt to about the overall thing. But this idea of like them tackling these...
Speaker: these concepts and themes of loneliness and and depression. I don't know. i think you it's It's much deeper than the average Marvel movie for sure. And I appreciate that because I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people just based on the percentages of people with mental health struggles that are watching this that have mental health struggles.
Speaker: People watching this might say, this is kind of a film for me in some capacity. They might relate to this idea that these it's not all sunshine and rainbows for all of these magical superheroes. It's not all optimism. not that If you look at even like Spider-Man, Tom Holland's Spider-Man has dealt with a lot of problems as well, but there's still this aspect that they never quite deal with.
Speaker: the mental health is kind of like dived into in a more surface level. Spider-Man is actually probably the worst example because I feel like it's the one that dives into it in ah the deepest way in comparison to all of the other Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.
Speaker: I think the one that does it the worst, and I'll say this to my dying breath, is Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, which I feel like deals with mental health in the worst possible way possible.
Speaker: I think it's like horrible. It's badly written, my opinion. But... This is the opposite. Yeah. yeah Yeah. What's the message? Dr. Strange, just kill yourself. Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's actually, bad yeah, it's really messed up. It's bad. And then, and then not only that, but their friendship idea is the opposite.
Speaker: We're not friends. We don't care. You helped to save the world. We don't care. And this is ridiculous. It's horrible. And it's like, at the end of the day, no one even cared about this person. They're just like, oh, but I'm at, am I okay? Yeah.
Speaker: look Guys, like get read the room. It's horrible. it's It's just a bad plot. People complain about that movie for many other reasons. I look at it on much deeper plot level. It's like on a character development level, it's not good.
Speaker: On a character development level in this movie, though, every single character, from my perspective, had a spot in the suns sunshine. There's a spot. They all had their spotlight. which I really appreciated. There's like these moments with like John Walker as an example. And he revealed, there's a reveal that his his his wife and daughter leaves him. And then they, they specifically like Jake Schreier shoots specifically John Walker and Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova. And you watch them like her look on her face.
Speaker: Her acting in this movie is so good. It's really, really good. They brought it their all, like all of the, all of the cast, they brought their all to this. And like the relationship between them, it it again,
Speaker: That's funny. They did that advertisement about it being like an A24 cast and an A24 production team and an A24 director. And it kind of shows, honestly, it's just a deeper movie and in in a lot of ways. And it it doesn't just feel like they're just going through the motions and they're just going to like get to the next set piece. Like let's get to the next action sequence. It feels like the action is dictated largely by the plot.
Speaker: and i And I really appreciate that. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree with you there. It's. um
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's nice. It's refreshing to have something this high quality in the MCU, because I feel like we do have that, though. And you'd believe that, too. That's the set the right right straight. Like, yeah, you have a lot of that.
Speaker: like Like, I think the Eternals actually one of those movies. I know people don't really like it, but the Eternals, like, I feel like it's a special MCU movie. I really like that movie. um But yeah, I think just like from a quality perspective, um in in almost every aspect, I think this kind of exceeds a lot of the previous movies.
Speaker: And yeah, I do agree with you. This is for sure in in the top third of MCU movies and from a quality perspective, and even just for how much I liked it. But again, i think... especially coming off of Falcon, um, Captain Falcon, the last Captain America movie, whatever the fuck it's called.
Speaker: Uh, Captain, uh, Captain Falcon bravely leaves the nest, right? Yeah. That one, that one. Yeah. Like it's, it's a breath of fresh air and I, I'm really hoping that fantastic four is a good movie.
Speaker: Um, But ah one thing that we didn't mention in that after credits scene um where it's revealed that they're the new Avengers, they're in Avengers Tower. It's really cool. Like it's I think 14 months later is when it says that it takes place.
Speaker: And apparently Bucky and Sam are fighting like Sam is making his own Avengers and sues them for copyright infringement, which I find really funny ah for taking the name Avengers. And then David Harbour is like, oh, we could be Avengers with a Z, like a Z at the end.
Speaker: i thought that was really cool. um And for the first time in however many movies, it's not an after credit scene of oh my God, there's a signal coming in space. There's a big bad coming our way. This time it's like, oh, there's a signal coming from space. It's about to land on Earth and it's the Fantastic Four ship.
Speaker: Yeah. Which kind of gives a lot of implications on to how the Fantastic Four ends. And I want to talk to you about that a little bit. And I'm curious, the Fantastic Four, they're obviously, that's a separate universe. They're coming to the um main MCU universe.
Speaker: And we see them teleporting in here in ah in a space shuttle. Do you think the Fantastic Four movie is going to end with Galactus literally winning and just destroying their like their universe and they have to escape?
Speaker: That's a hot take. That's pretty that's pretty smart. Yeah, maybe. That's possible. Yeah, that'd be pretty cool. And they have to come to a different Earth and through interdimensional travel. hu Yeah, that's very possible.
Speaker: but smart That's that's what I immediately started thinking when I saw that. I'm like, huh. huh like what What a cool ending that would be. It's going to be like almost like a... the i don't want to spoil it, but there's a certain Star Wars thing that it kind of does something dark like that. but You wouldn't expect Star Wars to do that. You wouldn't expect the MCU to do that. some Actually, I guess you wouldn't expect it until Infinity War.
Speaker: But it's just ah that aspect of that dark aspect of the villain winning, which hasn't really happened too much in the MCU, is really cool. So well yeah, that would be neat. I'm into that.
Speaker: Yeah. It's a good prediction. Well done. Thank you, Simon. I'm full of them. We'll see what happens. Like Taskmaster dying.
Speaker: Like Taskmaster. Right. Yeah. That one was fairly obvious. I was trying to be optimistic when I was predicting that she didn't die. but But yeah. Because also it's too obvious as well. like It's a bit too obvious. Like you hope that she's not going to die like that. She died way...
Speaker: like too fast and and like again she's a kind of a cooler character so yeah it's kind of too bad oh i don't know if you i don't know if you heard me but we're like halfway through the movie and i i leaned over to our pal ken and i was just like do you think taskmaster's coming back oh i heard you and looked you right in the eye yeah yeah i know you did i just wanted to make sure you said it out loud it's ridiculous you could have just said yeah and you looked me in the eye would admit what you thought i wasn't gonna admit it come on yeah come on now yeah on
Speaker: But yeah, okay. So here's the thing about the power metric. So I'll go into some of the negatives. I don't have too many many negatives on this movie. I thought it was really great. I will say, are you going somewhere? I'm still here. Are you not wearing pants?
Speaker: Me? You were on camera, right? Okay, thank God. That's right. That's good. Anyway, so, yeah, so the negatives I have, you mentioned the power metrics about ah Bob. I don't, that's actually not what I was going to point out at all.
Speaker: Oh, really? So the beginning fight scene, there's a lot of super soldiers. Oh, there's one specifically fighting a regular human. The problem with that is that if you have a regular, like a super soldier trying to kill a regular human and you have them hit that person, their bones are broken. broken Especially if he can, so apparently I've never even seen cap do this.
Speaker: He can jump like 50 feet in the air. Like what? Yeah. That's not a thing that that that we've ever seen. and but why is it that it was weird? There's that moment where Yelena Belova is on the ground and she's like holding her wrists up and she's electrocuting him or whatever. How is she stopping him from just crushing crushing her because he's a huge guy with super soldier strength and just stabbing her in the neck?
Speaker: I don't understand this. Does that make sense to you? I couldn't understand. Like what is he being stopped by? He's a very strong. Mm-hmm. Unless the the electrocution is doing something I'm not aware of. That was my assumption. Because she has gadgets.
Speaker: She's like Inspector Gadgets. Yeah. And she's using them. That's fair. That one is okay. I'll throw that off to side. But the jumping in the air was weird. And the fact that she gets knocked across the room multiple times. I'm like, wouldn't she just be dead? the then You can have... Yelena Belova is an incredibly trained...
Speaker: soldier. She's amazing. She's a spy, whatever. Awesome. She's great. I like also, by the way, the scenes in which they go back into the history, we talked about character development of each of the characters because Bob touches them and then they see the memories of their, their life. It's, it's really cool and really neat and makes me want to go back and see what their lives are like. It actually reminded me of some of the scenes in age of Ultron where, um,
Speaker: ah Scarlet Witch is touching various characters and then they're kind of going back in time. And it's cool because it brings the past into the forefront in ah in a weird way. like very It's very relevant because it's specifically what their're hand they're dealing with in modern times.
Speaker: um with The past and the present kind of colliding, which is cool. um But yeah, anyway, there's one other thing with the power metric thing that really, it's not less of a power metric, but just didn't make sense.
Speaker: There's a scene where Bob is in the air. He flies up in the air because they shoot him after they leave the compound. And the team is driving their truck along the road. And Bob flies up in the air where the soldiers would see him fly up in the air. But the the other team is driving down the road. How the hell do they see him fly up in the air?
Speaker: There's just no way. It's dark. It's nighttime. There is no way. There's no spotlight on him. He's too high up. No one can see him. That's absurd. And then they he they're like and they look out the window like, uh-oh. They can see him falling? No, you cannot.
Speaker: I just don't buy that for one second. It was the dumbest plot tiny plot hole. It's a nitpick in some way, but there's no way anyone would see that. If you can tell me that you would see somebody flying up in the air like so fast and then falling down to the ground, no, you can't see that. you would just They would didn't even need that scene where they say, uh-oh.
Speaker: the The guy hits the ground, the car crashes, and that's it. That's it. No one needs to see it. They needed to see it because they needed to know that Bob was... That was the whole point.
Speaker: Superpowered. But you couldn't do that unless you saw him there, but they had to leave because they weren't going to let him die in vain. That just doesn't make sense though. They should have been looking back and then saw him like through the back window or something. If somebody was in the trunk, then look at him kind of flying up and like, whoa, he just flew up in the air. That's the solution. not That's really silly. and that's just I don't know why that was so sillily written.
Speaker: But that's not what the focus of this movie was. And that's what the problem with the power metric thing is. It's like they don't, there's like this lack of, there's these different focuses for each movie. Like Bravely bravely Leaves the Nest, they were trying to make a point about how Sam is just as good as a super soldier, but that doesn't make any sense. Like just because he's got conviction, he's a super soldier and he doesn't have conviction. That's the funniest thing. He literally doesn't have any conviction, but they're like, he's got conviction. So he's good as, as good as Steve. I'm like, but,
Speaker: He's not though, because he's not a super soldier. So he's not as strong as Steve. You can't make him as strong as Steve. You can make him stronger in other ways if you want. But that's that's your prerogative. You have to show us the audience. Like again, live within the physics of your world that you designed. That is an important thing for me.
Speaker: But this doesn't make this movie bad because it wasn't as broken as that movie. That movie is the worst power metric movie. And i keep saying power metric and I should have described it better in the non-spoiler version of this.
Speaker: to describe that for the audience that doesn't know what i'm talking about. i'm talking about like one character is more strong than another character. Thor can fight Hulk. Which one would win? Those characters are fairly evenly matched and you see them fight in the MCU and who would win? That's a good question.
Speaker: But Iron Man fighting the Hulk, Ah, unless he's got the Hulkbuster, probably not going to work out. A super soldier fighting a regular human, the regular human has to be really agile and be dodging everything the super soldier does, or it's going to be bad news bears for them.
Speaker: They're going to be in bad shape. And so that's the problem is that Yolanda gets thrown twice. Meanwhile, later on in another fight with super soldiers, they're really wrecking soldiers up. Because they're the bad guys and we need the Elena Belova to survive in this scene.
Speaker: And that's kind of the the problem is you need to make sure you match up where the matchups make sense. And if you don't match it up, you show that the that one is overpowered over the other and that there's stakes that are higher than for Elena versus John Walker. John Walker's stakes were low because he wouldn't be killed by Elena.
Speaker: and She could have killed him if she shot him in the face. but she wasn't using a gun say in that scene. So that's kind of my my my one my one gripe. It's not too major. The fight with Bob, the power metrics thing is interesting there.
Speaker: Bob is interesting because they gutted him. They nerfed him at the end because he's got a mental health issue where he has amnesia and he also turns into a crazy psychopath in a strange way. like He turns into egomaniac, basically, and someone who's like deeply depressed.
Speaker: in those scenes when he becomes a superpowered guy. So he doesn't want to let himself become that. Or I suppose good Bob, who's deeply oppressed, gets buried and then Sentry takes over kind of situation or an alter ego situation. He's almost the Hulk.
Speaker: Sentry is the Hulk, essentially. He's got this like Jekyll and Hyde situation. So he can't turn. And I think that that's super interesting because he's so powerful. But we also wonder how powerful he is because we don't really know because he's not really fighting anyone of a substance.
Speaker: None of these people are that strong. Like you can have Bucky fight him, who's the most experienced of all those guys, but it doesn't matter because we don't, Bucky's still just a super soldier.
Speaker: So like if Bucky was fighting Thor, Thor would rip his head off. Like, it's like, well, what does that mean? But Thor fighting Sentry, That would be interesting. And I wonder, there was a lot of theories that they were going to do with Secret Wars that they were going to have various Marvel heroes team up.
Speaker: Because there was, ah I think Secret Wars, if I recall correctly, I think it's that one. What was it, the thing that got canceled? Kang Dynasty. I'm not sure. There was a theory that they were going to basically make all the heroes fight each other in like a Colosseum type situation.
Speaker: And that was what was going to happen when one of the villains takes over Earth. And so that could be very interesting if Bob... Bob is clearly in the cast for Doomsday as announced.
Speaker: Like Philip, not Philip, sorry, Pullman. What's his first name? Louis Pullman. Louis. Philip Pullman's the writer of his dark materials. Not that guy. um So yeah, I said a lot there, sorry.
Speaker: but But yeah, like, yeah, we'll see what happens. But I think if they're if they if they have like... If they have in Doomsday, they have Dr. Doom take over and kind of have them fighting each other. It's like almost like a puppet master because they he captures them somehow.
Speaker: ah That would be interesting because because Bob, I don't know how but but how much use Bob's going to be in Doomsday. And if he does become Sentry, yikes, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, so that's kind of what I'm confused about. It's like... Because he has his sentry powers regardless when he's in regular mode. He just doesn't want to use them, right? He's invincible. Because he's worried that he might go crazy and become the void, right?
Speaker: Yeah, I think if he does uses them at all in a substantial way, he'll he'll become like almost... power hungry and go for it yeah but like him being invincible is good that's fine but which is good he can't be harmed i guess but if he does something like tries to break a glass again or whatever it may be then we could have a ah problem on our hands uh yeah you know the world world disaster they just pop in there and hug him again
Speaker: That's got do. Right. Seemed pretty hard the first time. It's interesting too. I will say about this, the movie is interesting because it's, it again, like New York is a lot, is very much the home of very many superheroes, but no one ever seems to come there.
Speaker: It's, it's always that problem where like, this is such a small time film in a weird way. Like nobody, nobody approaches. Like there's so many heroes still. I know there's no Avengers, but the nobody comes to save the day. I know it's very fast too.
Speaker: But no one showed up. Yeah, I was always happy. Yeah, like I didn't think it was going to happen. But there's like a part where there's like a crane falling down.
Speaker: Yeah, when one century is kind of destroying the city. And I was like, deep inside. I was like, oh, man, this would be really cool. Spider-Man just came out of nowhere, just like held that crane back. or something like that. but But they don't do any of that.
Speaker: It makes sense that he should... There should be someone there. Because that, honestly, if you think about what happened and how fast he was making those people going into the void, that was crazy. That's like that's like a... It was... What what other...
Speaker: Think about another villain that's done something as crazy as that in the MCU other than Thanos. Like, I'm trying to think, like, what other villain did something so crazy so fast in such a small span of time? I guess in Eternals, they had that giant in the ocean, but it was in the ocean. it doesn't really affect...
Speaker: it doesn't really affect anyone as drastically as this did. I'm just trying to think about any other. I guess like Ultron with like the Sokovia, like bringing like an entire city up and just dropping it.
Speaker: And again, you can definitely say. Yeah, but that the Avengers, dude. Yeah, again, I was just going reference the first Avengers with Loki sending in a bunch of aliens oh yeah 100 but that's like it is the avengers though that's the thing yeah we have this like team of misfits trying to deal with this crazy entity and they somehow did it and they did it in the most like empathetic way possible the most compassionate that was the most compassionate that any avengers have ever been and it's a gang of misfits who shot taskmaster straight in the head point blank range yeah
Speaker: yeah it's the new avengers though dude yeah so like technically this was an avengers movie technically yeah you can that's right that makes sense the funny thing is like the new avengers is literally just a bunch of murderers yeah yeah yeah like they have all done terrible things every single one of them just setting examples for kids one shot to taskmasters skull at a time you know Honestly, honestly I genuinely love how they reference like John Walker, like just murder brutally murdering someone in the street because they on it like I remember watching that episode of of Captain Falcon and the Winterman being like, holy shit, like I'm shocked that they would go this far.
Speaker: And it's cool because they're like kind of redeeming this character, but he did awful stuff. All of them have. so Yeah, he was a dick even to them. He dropped them down the freaking elevator shaft. Yeah.
Speaker: You know? there' something There's something neat, though, about like the way that they handle that. and Again, the chemistry of them like and like bashing each other constantly. There's this like constant... uh like uh pitter patter of conversation where they're just making fun of each other the entire time my one of my favorite scenes is the scene where john walker is talking about his freaking helmet in the back of the truck it's just so good there's just like a lot of like it's really throwaway dialogue that's excellent like the jokes aren't excellent like they're none of them are amazing really but they all work because they feel realistic
Speaker: Because they're just making of each other. It seems like um they're always having genuine conversations based on like the situation they they're in. it's not like They feel real. Yeah, like let's not just do these random quips constantly.
Speaker: it's it It's just like, yeah I love that scene. Because they're like, oh, like yeah, so it's like you like your hat or whatever? And you're like, it's a helmet. ah yeah You think you like your helmet's cool? Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's just like this genuine conversation where they're like kind of like making fun like, yeah, Yelena and Ghost are making fun of him in the back of this truck. And then it like goes to the front and you have Red Guardian talking to Bucky being like, oh, you know, we can both be the leaders. It's like, yeah, but you know, mostly you like, yeah, we can do this together. And I love...
Speaker: how much he like red guardian loves bucky and like almost idolizes him because to be fair like bucky was around back in world war two as this like crazy hydra agent you know like and you know um red guardian kind of followed in his footsteps and like from a soviet perspective i don't know i really like that it plays it wasn't world war ii he wasn't winter soldier in world war ii but yeah oh what Oh, yeah, he dies in World War II.
Speaker: Probably the Cold War. yeah Yeah, it was the Cold War, which makes sense. um Yeah, sorry. But yeah, I really loved that. It's great. yeah I really like this movie.
Speaker: I'm glad that watched it. I also say like Bucky's scene where he's on the motorcycle is so cool. And the music beats with that were really great too. like The choice of score, like they did a great job in that scene.
Speaker: And that that's a great scene overall. like the There's this this element of when he like but he does that thing with the with the chain to like pull the truck and like stick it in the ground so that the truck ah gets wired and then it flips over...
Speaker: Yeah, it's just so badass. He's just a badass character. He's really cool. The one thing I'll say, you mentioned that alex Alexi likes ah Winter Soldier. That scene in the trailer where he's like, I love this guy and he's laughing. I love that scene in the trailer.
Speaker: That's not in the movie. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that weird? but That's an amazing scene. I'm like, I'm waiting for that because I just think that his reaction there, everything David Harbour did, his accent, Yelena Belove, like Florence Pugh and David Harbour, their accents are really good.
Speaker: Like they just, they nailed the dialogue from my perspective. I'm not from Russia. So, you know, I don't know, but I just think they nailed that aspect of it. Like, quite a bit, whether they were doing an emotional scene or they were, cause it could have been in these emotional scenes. You could have just been like pulled in by their accent and how their accents obviously not theirs and then just been distracted by it, but it wasn't a distraction at any point.
Speaker: And during the comedic scenes, it it just amplified the comedic scenes too. So it did. It really worked for both sides. It's really impressive. I'll again say like Florence Pugh, especially the way that she showed her darkness and how lonely she is. And she's like looking for like a purpose and how she jumps off the building and she almost seems like too tired to even do this. she's just wearing a so ah track suit and she's like, it's kind of going through motions. I just, there's that whole element in how she goes to visit red guardian and there, and she's just trying to find a solution and she just can't find one. I just,
Speaker: I don't know. i Again, it's very relatable on a human level. And that's where these characters and their banter back and forth feel more relatable too because they feel like real human beings that are flawed people and not just some like superhero like Thor who's like this golden child. Although they do show in the other MCU movies that these characters are flawed in other ways too. But in this one, they really focused on it.
Speaker: And that's the best part of it by far. And so yeah um to jump to the scores now because I think you're done. I yeah get the impression. ah We'll score this on our Rotten Potatoes score, your favorite ah favorite title for a score aggregation here.
Speaker: ah I'll score it. I'm kind of conflicted, actually. um ah So you know what? You go first. yeah yeah I don't know. I'm going between two, but I think I know what I'm going to go with. But I'll give you the first. Yeah, I would give this like ah like a like a solid four out of five. Okay.
Speaker: If I'm rating it from just like a movie perspective, like if I was viewing this within just the confines of the MCU, I'd probably give it a higher score. um But yeah, like just in general, it's a really good movie. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: Great addition to the MCU. Four out of five. Okay. Awesome. I also give it a four out of five. That's actually my score on Letterboxd. And it's excellent. Yeah. I have a few flaws with it. I mentioned them already, but I think that it's it's excellent. It's heartfelt. four point Sorry, 4.0 out of five, which makes our score and eight out of 10 potatoes score.
Speaker: Adrian? Potatoes. Yeah. Eight out of 10 potatoes. potatoes It's a fresh potato, as you say. Yeah, okay. Well, cool. That's great.
Speaker: Super cool, This fun conversation. It was a good movie. I'm excited for the next one. Fantastic Four is going to be and be a big one. Yeah, and I have Fantastic Four free movie tickets.
Speaker: Wow. That was seamless. Yeah, thank you. That was a seamless sentence right there. Okay. ah Well, yeah, that's been ah our review of Thunderbolts Asterisk.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. No, no, no. Say it. Say it. I can't. I can't say because you can't spoil it. We can't spoil it yet now because after the scores, like I'm trying not to spoil it because then I can timestamp it in the in the YouTube. Oh.
Speaker: The YouTubes. You know I'm saying? Anyway. Yeah, that's all. That's all I'm going to You text it to me? Because now No, that's it. That's all. That's it. That's all. Thank you so much for watching, audience. Thank you, Adrian, for joining me as always. And goodbye.
Speaker: Have a good Take Goodbye. Thank you.
Speaker: Just text it to me. I want to know.
