I haven’t done this sort of thing in a while…

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE THUNDERBOLTS* BELOW. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE YET.

Spoiler space floor. Everybody out…

I saw Thunderbolts* on opening day and I liked it a lot. I think it is one of the better Marvel films to come out this cycle and it has a lot of Guardians of the Galaxy vibes to it. There are a couple of things I would have done differently with the film, however.

1. TASKMASTER: She would have died five minutes in. This is a big misstep by the movie to deprive us of a really good chance of character building for several people. Yelena could look at the Taskmaster with a very cold “there but for the grace of God go I” vibe. Taskmaster is there as a reminder that no one ever really leaves the Red Room. Taskmaster could also break through her programming – I heard through the grapevine that in an early iteration of the script, Taskmaster would make it to the end, but in the early parts of the movie, she would be constantly resetting herself and attacking the main characters. This was sadly dropped. – and help Bob overcome the Void, going so far as to say “I understand what you’re going through – we were both twisted in a lab, but you can get through this, and you’re not alone.” This fits well with the theme of mental illness in the movie and it works for multiple characters. Taskmaster overcomes her programming, Bob gets someone to help him through his own trauma in the end and Yelena gets a little hope that she can be a good leader.
2. BUCKY: His story line as Congressman was abandoned a little too quickly. I think it would have been better for him to barely come out of the very first battle intact – when he attacked the convoy – and told Yelena that he would be better serving the group of he were back at Congress trying to dig up some more dirt on this project. It would force Yelena to try to rally Red Guardian without the Winter Soldier (although, to be honest, the scenes with the Red Guardian fanboy-ing on him were funny). The battled would have been a little harder, but it would have made their coming together a lot more powerful.

That’s it – those are the only two things I would have changed. Other than that, this movie had some great Phase One vibes to it. In fact, I am going to go again and see it. I may put up another blog post about it when I get back. Go see it! Ta-ta for now.