We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
Cody marvels, Joe Goldberg kills, and Kong goes to space.
THUNDERBOLTS* (2025)
Back in 1996, Marvel Comics introduced a new team of heroes called the Thunderbolts – then revealed that this group was actually a rebranded group of villains called the Masters of Evil, who were posing as new heroes to gain the trust of other heroes and access to their secrets, which they would then sell to the highest bidder. Eventually, some team members felt they should try to become real heroes, and the group fell apart. As for the name of the team, it was said to be inspired by a Thomas Randolph poem: “Justice, like lightning, ever should appear to few men’s ruin, but to all men’s fear.” The idea was, “Our hope is that we can be that lightning — that justice.” Other versions of the team would appear throughout the years, often consisting of reformed supervillains who were looking to reduce their prison sentences or redeem themselves for their past crimes. This is why the heroic team has had members like Baron Zemo, Norman Osborn (Green Goblin), Wilson Fisk (The Kingpin), and Doctor Doom at times. Now, the Thunderbolts have been made part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and even though founding member Baron Zemo is part of the MCU, he didn’t make it into the movie. Marvel Studios, director Jake Schreier, and initial screenwriter Eric Pearson (whose script received revisions from Joanna Calo and an uncredited Lee Sung Jin) did assemble an interesting group of characters, though.
The Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier introduced the character Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who has worked her way up to become the director of the CIA, but used to be the head (and probably still is) of a black ops company called O.X.E. Group. Now facing impeachment due to her O.X.E. dealings, Valentina is hiring mercenaries to clean up her secrets for her, carrying out assassinations, busting into labs around the world and destroying evidence, etc. One of the people working for her is Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), the younger sister of the late Black Widow Natasha Romanoff, who is feeling lost in her life and empty inside. Following a mission that involves Yelena base-jumping off the Merdeka 118 in Malaysia, the second tallest building in the world, Valentina sends her on another mission to access an underground vault in the American desert.
Once Yelena is inside the vault, she discovers that Valentina has sent other mercenaries to the location as well: former Captain America John Walker (Wyatt Russell), now known as U.S. Agent; Ant-Man and the Wasp villain Ghost, a.k.a. Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen); and Black Widow villain Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). Unbeknownst to the individual mercenaries, these characters are all supposed to kill each other while they’re in the vault – and in case they don’t, the place has been set up to lock down and incinerate everything inside. These mercenaries are part of the mess Valentina is trying to clean up. During their fight, they accidentally open some kind of cryostasis pod, releasing... a dude named Bob (Lewis Pullman). A guy who seems completely out of place in these surroundings.
This mix of troubled heroes and former villains, plus Bob, realize they need to work together to survive and escape from this vault – and once they have made their way to the surface, which requires fighting their way through some other people employed by Valentina, the group is joined by former Winter Soldier and now Congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), who is working to get Valentina impeached, and Yelena’s father figure Alexei Shostakov, a.k.a. the Red Guardian (David Harbour), who overheard Valentina’s vault plans while working as her limo driver. They do lose Bob along the way, as he is whisked off to Valentina’s headquarters... which happens to be the former Avengers Tower in New York City. As it turns out, O.X.E. Group had been conducting human experiments on down-on-their-luck volunteers, and Bob is the result of that experimentation. He has been given incredible superhuman powers, he’s described as being more powerful than all of the Avengers put together, and Valentina wants to make him a superhero under the name The Sentry. But Bob has had a troubled life; there’s a dark side to his personality. A Void within him. And this could make him extremely dangerous.
As many have noted, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been on something of a downswing lately, with some movies not performing as well as expected, some TV shows not going over as well as hoped, and some projects not being as good as they should have been. Sure, there have been some positive spikes, but Marvel has been taking a bit of a beating recently. For me, Thunderbolts* (the reason for the asterisk was spoiled after opening weekend) is a major positive spike; a film that ranks as one of the truly great Marvel movies, and hopefully a sign that Marvel has endured their rough patch and is making a quality comeback.
This is a really entertaining movie with likeable characters and plenty of amusing moments and lines. The action is a bit more low-key than what has been seen in a lot of Marvel movies, but there’s enough of it and there are high stakes in the climactic sequence. And what I really loved about the movie is the fact that it is “about something.” It’s not just a fun movie about good guys thwarting bad guys; its superhero story is also an allegory for overcoming trauma and depression. All of the heroes and Bob have complicated pasts; regrets, disgraces, losses. The film digs into some of them and references others, but we know each of these characters have a reason to have a “void” inside of them – and in the end, they have to overcome the belief that they’re a bunch of losers so they can step up and help Bob face the void within himself. If you have dealt with depression in your life, Thunderbolts* might just bring a tear to your eye. I have been dealing with it for most of my life, and the movie definitely had an emotional impact on me.
When Marvel announced Thunderbolts*, a lot of people were questioning why these characters would get their own movie. Who cares about these characters? Why should viewers go see a movie that’s about them? But that’s kind of the point of the whole thing. They’re underdogs, they know it. But they still have what it takes to save the day.
I AM GROOT: SEASON TWO (2023)
Back in 2022, Marvel Studios, Disney+, and animator Kirsten Lepore brought us the animated show I Am Groot, which consisted of five episodes that were only around four minutes long a piece – a cute goof of a show that focused on that adorable tree creature (from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise) that says nothing but “I am Groot.” The following year, another five episodes of I Am Groot dropped on the Disney+ streaming service – and the five episodes that make up season 2 (and still run for about 4 minutes a piece) are just as cute and goofy as the episodes that made up the first season.
As in the first season, Groot is in his toddler days during the events of the second season. We follow little Groot as he crosses paths with a freshly hatched bird-like creature, gains a nose for the first time in his life (which he initially finds to be pretty cool... until he realizes his living space is a stinky mess), plays in a winter wonderland (and accidentally builds a dangerous snowman), tries to get some treats from an ice cream spaceship, and baffles the extraterrestrial character Uatu is the Watcher (from the What If...? series) as he makes his way through a location that’s full of booby-traps. Uatu expects to see Groot fulfill a great prophecy, but he does not go about doing so in the way Uatu thinks he will.
I Am Groot is not essential viewing, but it’s fun to watch and it goes by very quickly. It’s the sort of thing that both kids and adults can enjoy watching for the 20 minutes it takes to get through an entire season.
YOU SEASON FOUR (2023)
His suburban life with fellow serial killer Love Quinn may have gone up in flames, literally, but Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) hasn’t let that slow him down. Love’s body wasn’t even cold by the time Joe caught a flight to Paris in search of his latest object of affection, librarian Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle). The fourth season of the thriller series You reveals that Joe ended up following Marienne from Paris to London – and while it does wrap up that storyline that carried over from the third season, it does so in an unexpected way. The majority of You season 4 follows a different story, and it has a different (for one thing, much more British) vibe than the preceding seasons.
Using the name Jonathan Moore, Joe has landed a job teaching literature at a London university, and while he says he’s doing his best to keep to himself, his way of staying out of everyone else’s business is to make sure he knows every detail of their business, keeping an eye on them and cyber-stalking them. His new life starts to crumble when fellow professor Malcolm Harding (Stephen Hagan) turns up dead on Joe’s dining table, having been stabbed in the chest. Soon, Joe is receiving text messages from someone who claims to have killed Malcolm – and they know who he was back in the States. So Joe has to integrate himself into Malcolm’s circle of friends in an effort to find the killer – who gains the nickname “the Eat the Rich killer,” since their victims tend to be quite wealthy.
This means Joe has to interact with the likes of Malcolm’s standoffish girlfriend Kate Galvin (Charlotte Ritchie), socialite Lady Phoebe (Tilly Kepper), Lady Phoebe’s leech of a boyfriend Adam Pratt (Lukas Gage), author/politician Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers), Kate’s childhood friend Roald Walker-Burton (Ben Wiggins), and a few others played by Aidan Cheng, Niccy Lin, Eve Austin, Ozioma Whenu, and Dario Coates. He also has to deal with Lady Phoebe’s bodyguard Vic (Sean Pertwee) and has interactions with literature student Nadia Farran (Amy-Leigh Hickman), who becomes quite suspicious of him as the season goes on.
This season was quite interesting on first watch – but there’s a big twist late in the episode count that can really change your whole perception of the story. Because of this twist, season 4 is my least favorite of You’s five seasons and the only one I find to be a bit of a chore to sit through again for a rewatch. The first time, you think something is going on, but you eventually learn that certain something isn’t going on... and with that knowledge in mind, I find it difficult to watch the episodes over again. It’s good, but more of a “one and done” kind of good.
Even on rewatch, things get interesting toward the end as we find out exactly what happened with Marienne, as Nadia starts digging up secrets, as Joe and Kate start to fall for each other – and as Greg Kinnear shows up as Kate’s ruthless businessman father Tom Lockwood, who isn’t at all bothered when he has to kill people to achieve his goals. Kinnear doesn’t have a whole lot of screen time, but he really livens up the show when Tom Lockwood is there, practically dripping slime.
KONG: KING OF THE APES SEASON TWO (2018)
Eight years ago, I watched the first season of Kong: King of the Apes, an animated series that was produced for the Netflix streaming service and had no connection to any other incarnation of the character, giving its Kong his own unique origin story set in the not-too-distant future. When discovered, this version of Kong was believed to be the last wild gorilla in existence. He was taken in by Doctor Leo Remy, an expert in bionics, and his young twin sons Lukas, who formed a deep bond with the animal, and Richard, who shared his love for technology but hated nature, so he developed an intense dislike for Kong. By 2050, Leo and Lukas have turned Alcatraz Island into the Remy Natural History and Marine Preserve, a.k.a. Kong Island, which houses various endangered species and also has a bit of a tourist trap element: bionic dinosaurs built by Richard. During that first season, Leo passed away and Richard was revealed to be a supervillain, who causes so much trouble for Kong that Lukas and the animal had to go into hiding with the help of his friend Jonesy, veterinarian Amy, Amy's little brother Danny, family housekeeper Anita, and Anita's grandniece Franciska (a.k.a. Panchi).
Season 2 begins with Kong, Lukas, Danny, and Panchi falling into a volcano (having been knocked in there by Richard), where they discover a subterranean primordial world – and they’re quickly joined by Richard, who was tossed into the volcano by his bionic assistant Botila. While Botila goes rogue and starts to terrorize the world in the name of the AI Liberation Front, with the help of her own bionic assistants, our heroes find ancient symbols that resemble Kong in the underground world – and then they cross paths with more of his species. Gorillas that treat him as their King. As it turns out, Kong was a regular gorilla that was sent to the surface level by this ape civilization because global warming was messing with the underground world. Kong was meant to save them – and to give him an edge in this endeavor, they used "weird science" to make him grow to his incredible size.
Accompanied by a baby dinosaur they name Zippisaurus, our heroes return to the surface and reunite with Jonesy and Anita (Amy has gone off to China)... just in time for Botila and her lackeys to blow up their home in the Redwoods. The majority of Kong: King of the Apes season 2’s ten episodes follow the heroic group’s attempts to thwart Botila’s dangerous schemes, adventures that require them to face off with the likes of mechanical dinosaurs, a mechanical octopus, and mechanical monkeys (some of which can fly), among other things. When Botila takes control of a satellite that’s equipped with missiles, Kong and his friends have to go into space – where Kong gets his own spacesuit! And when there’s trouble underwater, they go diving, and Kong gets his own wetsuit. And fights a megalodon.
By the time we reach the final confrontation with Botila, Richard has found a way to give himself a major growth spurt with that “weird science,” so he can take on any big creatures himself.
There isn’t anything mind-blowing about Kong: King of the Apes season 2, but it’s a fun show and a binge through the episodes is an entertaining way to spend five hours or so.
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