Welcome to level seven,
the Thunderbolts
Asterix movie
review. Welcome to level seven,
a podcast about Marvel's agents of shield and
the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It's a magical place.
Hello, everyone. I'm Ben. Ben, Avery. Over here
on my left is Samantha. How are you
doing, Samantha? I am well. How are you?
I'm doing good. And together, we are welcome
to level seven, and we are ready to
talk about
thunderbolts asterisk
because it's part of the title. And and
now we know what it stands for.
And I have thoughts about that. I don't
wanna spoil it. I I wanna talk about
it in the spoilers because it is a
spoiler. Of course, it's been all over the
news. Well, I mean, the day after the
movie came out,
and it wasn't just in the news. The
day after the movie came out, Marvel itself
spoiled it.
Yeah.
Like,
what
are you thinking?
You're, like, trying to build up this whole,
like,
mystique
about the the asterisk. What is it gonna
mean? And
and then,
hey, we're just gonna say it outright for
people who haven't made it to the theater
yet. That's
it's dirty pool, man.
Not cool. So anyway, yeah. So we're gonna
do our definite The beginning of this podcast
is gonna be definitely spoiler free. We'll play
the spoiler Oregon, and we'll get into in-depth
discussion about the movie and its themes and
some of the things with the characters and
their character arcs and stuff.
But this
I
I just wanna start off
our spoiler filled conversation or spoiler free conversation
by saying
I
really enjoyed myself in this movie. I
truly had an enjoyable time at the
theater watching this movie,
and
it's one of the best Marvel things of
the year. Yes. I it feels like it's
a return to form. I have to say
one of the best because Daredevil Born Again
has been fantastic.
That that was great.
It was good, good stuff.
Recently, I was on YouTube and I came
across this one video,
and there was this guy, he was saying,
oh, the MCU is terrible. They're they're they're
producing nothing but crap now, blah blah blah
blah blah blah. And and the comments, people
were talking about how terrible it was, and
and then they brought up Daredevil.
Oh, Daredevil, it's it's it's not the same
anymore. Blah blah blah. And I'm like,
yeah. It's ten years down the road, but
it's still
really good quality. Yeah. It's I I think
people just complain sometimes these days just to
get attention.
And maybe people really don't like it. And
and maybe it is that whole what do
they call it? Superhero fatigue or whatever,
where the people who used to enjoy that
stuff
just aren't. And it's just not giving the
them what it used to give them. I
get it. That's fine. But I will say
that between Dare Devil Worn Again and Thunderbolts,
it's good stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. And
I don't know if I'll see a return
to form because there was,
first of all, there was some rather bland
and not super exciting Marvel stuff happening,
let's say,
pre
Endgame.
You know, and that's kind of the mark,
the demarcation point. You have everything from before
endgame
and everything after endgame. Yeah. And.
After endgame. Yeah, it did feel.
A little bit meandering and it did feel
like it didn't have purpose
or drive
to it, and it still somewhat feels that
way.
But
before endgame, there was always this kind of
push toward we're going toward Thanos, going toward
Thanos, going toward Thanos. There's the there's this
the gems. We're going towards this. We have
this insight.
And
and getting there, there was some fantastic movies
getting there.
After endgame. I wouldn't say there was there
there wasn't many fantastic
movies.
There just weren't. Yeah. But
there still was some fun stuff and I
enjoyed the movies that have come but this
movie
felt
it did feel like a return in some
ways. It did feel like a return. So
Yeah. I remember Shang Chi was a really
oh, it's it's still one of the best
movies in the MCU, and that was the
first film after Endgame. And then,
not long after that,
things went downhill very quickly.
Yeah. I mean,
you have Black Widow.
Black Widow. You had,
you know, Amanda and the Wasp stuff, and
you had,
The pandemic.
Sony verse stuff going on. Yeah. And the
change of the guard at Disney
and,
the pandemic
and the,
the. King dynasty that was hanging everything
and on Jonathan Majors and that switched up
and. Yeah. There's there's a lot going against
the writers strike. There's a lot going against
the MCU.
But the biggest thing
really was for me just, okay, they're making
okay movies now.
They're making some okay movies. Oh,
Black Panther, Wakanda, Forever. That was pretty good.
Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty good. Oh. But
Yeah. But no real standouts where you're just
like, oh my gosh.
What did I just see? I can't believe
this. You know, that kind of thing.
Shang Chi still stands out in my head.
No. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. And that is a
highlight of not just
post Endgame, but that's a highlight of
the MCU in general
for for sure. For sure.
But And I'm shocked that they haven't really
done much with that franchise since because that
was a huge hit.
That's the problem with
the way they've built out the MCU, though,
is
because
you can't do
I can't do the Avengers every year. Yeah.
And so the Avengers, what was helped with
the Avengers was they would do like, okay,
here's your Captain America movie, here's your Thor
movie, here's your iron man movie here's one
more rando
and then and now we'll do
a avengers movie and now here's here's this
this this this avengers here's this this this
avengers and
and they didn't have any anchor points in
the midst of all this.
Now they did have a get a Spiderman.
If it was a far from home. No
way home. Spiderman no way home. Yeah. Oh
yeah. No Way Home. Oh yeah.
But that one was
you know building on
a cast that that was an ensemble cast
and that's and that's what we have here
with Thunderbolts. I think that's the biggest thing
is it's an ensemble cast. It's definitely not
your heavy hitters as far as
the popular characters.
But
it's an ensemble
piece. There's a
bunch of
characters. The the one problem is because they're
minor characters,
you may not have seen what they were
in if you're not a die hard.
You know? So you may not understand why
is this guy look why does this guy
look like Captain America? Wait
wait a minute. I thought
I thought the Falcon was fact Captain America
now. And and you have this guy? Like,
what's going on? Like, if you're not a
diehard fan who's really into all of it
and watching the TV or the Disney plus
stuff,
I could see possibly being
confused.
Yeah.
And with Ghost, I keep thinking Ant Man
and the Wasp was so long ago.
It was.
And there It was. What a weird callback.
Yeah.
Yeah. And then you have,
Taskmaster
from from Black Widow, and you again, if
you didn't see Black Widow,
you don't know why that character has any
importance at all.
Yeah. If you didn't see Black Widow, you
wouldn't you may not understand
Elena or Alexi
either. Right. Right. Yeah.
Or Val. Or no. No. Or actually well,
Val showed up in several different places. She's
been in a couple. Yeah. Yeah. But,
yeah,
there's a lot actually a lot of tie
ins to Black Widow.
This this almost in some ways is a
sequel
to Black Widow more than any any other
thing,
because of
Red Guardian, because of Yeah. But this is
a team up movie and this is what
team up movies do well. You bring these
characters, you throw them in the mix, you
let them play off each other.
And and that really worked too. I enjoyed
the way that that worked out. But the
biggest thing I enjoyed about this movie was
there's actually heart
behind it.
And I would say that's the big difference
between Yes. Between Thunderbolts and Suicide Squad.
To me, a big difference is first of
all, PG 13.
Yeah.
The r. But,
but I really felt like there was heart.
Like, genuine genuine heart.
And it said something.
Well, I feel like these aren't
specifically villains. I felt they were more like
anti heroes.
Yeah. No, they
they weren't villains.
Well,
they kind of were villain ish.
But
but you're right I mean they're they're not
just anti heroes they're you know
black widow is an assassin
and all of them come together
because they're all connected
because they're all doing things that aren't the
most heroic whether it's because they're doing things
like Elena
on the assassin front
or
they're
a limo driver. You know? It's like there
there's all these different aspects of what's going
on in their lives
that make this, you know,
they're unlikely heroes.
Yeah. Unlikely heroes. And
and so I liked it. I I liked
that a lot. And and the new character,
I I really liked him.
That's, Bill Pullman's son.
Yeah. Louis Pullman. I was I was like,
why why does he look at first, I
thought maybe I was like, why is Spider
Man in this movie? And then I realized,
no. This is a different actor
because he looks a lot like like oh
my gosh. I could see that. I could
see that Tom Holland is Yeah. He looks
a lot like Tom Holland.
They could play brothers.
They look so much alike.
And then I was like then I found
out he was Lewis Pullman, Bill Pullman's son.
So he's, you know, the president's son from
from, Independence
Day.
Yeah. Bill Pullman played the president in that
movie.
Yeah.
But even
he's he's had a career. So that's the
that's the one thing I was like, okay.
So how did he get this? You know?
And and, yeah, there's that whole Nepo baby
thing going on for sure. But he has
had a career and he he's made a
a name for himself. And and this movie,
I feel like,
it he did a great job.
And and his character again, I'm not gonna
say too much about his character, but there
was heart there. Yeah. Yeah.
And then you get Lewis Pullman next to
Wyatt Russell,
who's also a Nippo baby. Yeah. I didn't
even thought about that. Yeah. And I was
like, man, this is, like, really Hollywood the
next generation, it feels like.
But, I mean, I don't wanna call them
I hate calling them Nepo babies because that
feels like such a,
like, kind of a dis, but The whole
Nepo baby thing is very interesting to me
because
I, you know, look at my family.
I am doing a lot of the same
things with my life
that my dad did with his
and my kids are doing a lot of
the same things as they're you know going
through college and getting ready for their life.
They're doing a lot of the same things
that I did going to the same school
that I went to for college.
Getting ready you know it just it's interesting
and it also makes sense you know and
so your your nepo baby or whatever
yeah
sure the idea behind it
exists the name itself is it diminishes a
little bit. The the person that you're talking
about for sure.
But at the same time it totally makes
sense. You grow up in that world. You
see your parents doing this thing
and they're passionate about this thing and if
they love this thing they're passing that love
on to the child or passing on a
passion that maybe doesn't isn't love or maybe
passing on a duty. You know it's not
just
it's not just a passion or a love
but it can be something that that kids
will do because they feel like they have
to because that's what my dad did and
so that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna
I'm gonna work in the coal mine you
know or I'm gonna
I don't want to be a poet like
you dad I wanna I wanna be I
wanna be a miner.
Which is one of my favorite Monty Python
sketches where you have the the son who
doesn't want to be a poet he wants
to work in the mines.
But
yeah. So it it makes sense. But, yeah,
I had thought about the the Kurt Russell
and, Wyatt Russell connection as well with
the famous dads. Yeah. Okay. So that's kind
of my initial thoughts. I'm assuming
based on things that I've read
from you,
you also enjoyed this movie.
I really enjoyed this movie. Like I said,
it felt like a return to form. I
mean, it's not as great as Endgame and
and Infinity Wars, but
it feels more on par with,
a lot of the movies we saw before
Endgame. So it it feels like Feige is
back in in in control and,
and, the whole of phase five
pre or or the mass majority of phase
five preceding felt like it like Feige had
somehow lost power. Because I know Feige is
a huge fan,
which I think it what helps make this
whole thing work just because he loves
movie making. He loves the MCU.
He just wanna makes everything,
he wants to make sure everything flows together
really well.
Oh, speaking of of which of phase five,
this is, it was announced. This is the
last movie for phase five.
It didn't even feel like a phase. That's
the that's the big thing for me is
just this.
Again, I use the word, directionless, I think,
meandering.
I just feel like this hasn't been bringing
us anywhere.
But here's the best part about this movie
is while yes, it does build on stuff
from the past.
I feel like the movie itself
actually works as a movie.
Like, there's a beginning, a middle, and an
end. And
while yes it might be confusing to have
another guy in a Captain America suit carrying
a shield and people are making fun of
him that he's like I was Captain America
officially you know but
I feel like it was his own thing.
Now it was definitely, especially you get to
post credits,
teasing what's coming.
But the movie itself felt like it could
stand by itself and just be what it
is by itself. And that's
that's that was also a little bit refreshing.
Yes. Yes.
Okay. So
out of
I mean, I I'm guessing that most people
who are listening to us right now have
probably
seen the movie so I think we can
get into spoilers pretty soon here but I
would ask you out of how many fake
shields
out of five
would you give this movie?
Four and a quarter.
Wow. And we've and
it's been so long since I've seen the
movie. I have actually given deep thought into
what my rating is, so I'm gonna go
with four and a quarter.
I'm going with four. Okay. I'm going with
four. It's
and if you're if you're putting them on,
you know,
up or down,
you know, like, top half, lower half, this
is a top half movie Yes. In the
MCU.
Obviously I give it a thumb up if
if you're doing a binary thumbs up thumbs
down but
yeah I really enjoyed it. Yeah I had
a lot of fun.
So
we're gonna play the spoiler organ we're gonna
talk a little bit about specifics in this
movie and if you've not seen the movie
then please
listen at your own risk and here comes
the spoiler organ. All right I thought maybe
Samantha one of the best ways we could
go through kind of the movie is kind
of talk about the different
characters. With or we could go through the
quadrant. The quadrant
that I use when I'm, like, coming up
with
formatting a review
to write it out was,
to talk about characters, plot,
themes, and style.
And then I added a fifth, which makes
it not a quadrant anymore, but,
which is enjoyment.
And so,
we're we're we could go either way, Samantha.
Do you have a preference? I think we'd
we'd be more thorough with character, but it's
gonna take longer.
Well, let's let's let's go through the characters
then and and kinda talk about their arcs
as well as we do so. So the
main character of this movie, I would argue,
the main character is Yelena.
Would you agree? I agree. Okay. I think
Not just her main character. She's now, like,
the team leader. She's captain America. She's
And
And but this is this is her movie
in a lot of ways. This movie starts
with her. It kinda ends with her.
And a lot of the movie hinges on
her character development and her arc.
And at the very least red guardian's
character arc is really to support hers
and you know because he is you know
part of her adoptive family in a way
from when they were spies in The United
States while she was a child.
But but this is her movie and this
is her kind of figuring out who is
she
who who am I in in in this
new world
and you know we've seen her now in
Black widow.
We've seen her in Hawkeye
where she played a a pretty big part
there.
We've seen how things went for her with
the blip
When she was dusted
and came back five years later and when
she came back five years later,
her her her sister was gone because
Natasha
sacrificed herself to stop Thanos.
And and she's just trying to figure out
who she is, and she's working
for Valentina.
She's she's working for Elaine Benes,
and
the whole team basically comes together because they're
working for Elaine.
But,
yeah. What do you think about her character
arc here then? Like, the things they do
with her character arc where she's
she's trying to
get past her mistakes, get past her past,
and
figure out who she's supposed to be. What
is she supposed to do?
And Red Guardian wants to encourage her to
be a hero. Do more hero stuff.
And
but in but what she's doing is in
the shadows and she's killing lots of people.
And it's making her depressed. Yeah. Because she
has downtime between assignments, and she's
she's sitting in her home
or where wherever she is, and she's
I think malaise is a good word for
it. She's she says, I I'm scrolling on
my phone thinking about my mistakes, basically.
Yeah.
And that's the other nice thing is
a lot of the character arcs are kind
of wrapped up in this idea of kind
of overcoming the past
and not letting the past define
your future.
You know, you can't do anything about it.
It's there.
But
what are you gonna do with it and
how are you gonna move forward?
And a lot of the people in this
movie, that is what they are
dealing with. Actually, probably all of them. I
mean, I I feel like they really did
a good job of tying that theme into
John Walker, Captain America's
thing. Bob Sentry's
character.
Ghost kind of, I guess, but not maybe
not as much.
And and Red Guardian,
he's there as comic relief, but he's also
there to bring he's the wise comic relief
who kind of bumbles into wisdom
as he's talking to,
Yelena.
So
and and I appreciate what they did with
that theme. I appreciate what they're, you know,
talking about mental health, basically.
Yeah. And and addiction.
And,
it's it was it was good. It was
good. And
so Yelena,
I mean, she's on a journey here.
And, yeah, she's moving from loner, depressed loner
to,
purpose filled
leader.
Yeah. And oh my gosh. It's
Florence Pugh is just I mean, every time
I see her in this role, she just
well, any role just about I mean, she
just knocks it out of the park. I've
yet to see a bad performance from her
in anything I've seen her in.
I'm sure there's something out there where it's
like,
but I haven't seen it yet. I mean,
whether it's playing Amy in Little Women or
her role in Dune two, I mean
I mean, or here in the MCU? I
mean, it's just
she does such a great job. And Elena
is she's
she would has been given a lot of
freedom to improvise with this character too, and
she has made Elena to be
very funny and very sentimental. Yeah. I I'm
gonna use this word again probably or this
compound word anyway. But,
heartfelt.
Her performance was heartfelt. Yes. And I I
really did
feel
like I was watching an actor
do the acting thing, but
bringing to life,
emotions
and and change.
Yeah.
And we also get to visit her past
where she does her first red room murder.
She didn't do the actual killing, but she
led a friend to to be killed.
And and she goes back to that over
and over again. And it's again, kinda dealing
with your past and
and you revisit those moments over and over
again.
And it's good to learn from those kind
of things, but it's not good to live
there.
And it seems like that's kind of what
she's doing. Like you said, when she's she's
got that malaise when she's between missions. Well,
she's thinking about the mistakes that she made
and the horrible things that she did.
And then you have Red Guardian help her
deal with that. Like, You were a child.
You were a child. And that's
They should have never done that, but they
did. And I like what they did with
her. And she's not a character I really
liked that much before. This is probably the
turning point for me with her character that
actually
liked
who she was and what she was doing.
I liked her back in Hawkeye because there
was that whole thing about I'm trying to
find Hawkeye.
I'm in Lady Hawke's apartment, and, oh, by
the way, I made macaroni and cheese. You're
sad because you only have one bowl and
one spoon.
That whole thing. She was
funny.
She was funny, but I haven't I didn't
exactly enjoy the character,
And and this this time I did. So
Well, she also had a huge arc in
that too, because she she she I don't
think she realized
that the person that she was sent to
kill was her sister's best friend.
No. No. Yeah. She
the person she was sent to kill was
involved in her her sister's death,
and,
yeah, she did not know.
Yeah. But
she also didn't know that
the person that she blamed in her sister's
death
didn't want her sister to die either.
Right.
Yeah.
Again, another situation where a ten minute conversation
could solve everything.
So we're following her through this movie then.
We see her and she goes to a
lab and there's all these, like, weird shadow
things on the wall,
like dust shadows, or it's like, Oh, that's
weird. What is that? And.
She is getting information. She's blowing things up.
And then she goes on her she goes
to talk to Red Guardian and then she
goes on her next mission,
which takes her to a place where she
meets our other characters.
So let's talk about Red Guardian, I guess,
first and and kinda get him out of
the way. I've kinda given you my feelings
about he's hilarious.
He is so funny,
which
no surprise there.
He's also kind of the heart of the
team. He's the one who's like encouraging everyone
to be heroic.
You know, we could be heroes
and and that kind of thing.
Not a lot more not much more than
that to him, though.
So enjoyable. He brings a lot of levity
to the proceedings
that wouldn't necessarily be there.
And the other characters reactions to him
also bring levity
to this situation. But he also brings, again,
heart
to this, especially when he's working and and
dealing with with Yelena.
I will say that there are some stupid
plot points in this movie,
and one of them is him as the
limo driver. He just happens to be driving.
I shouldn't say just happens to be, but
he pushes himself to be able to drive
the limo
that Valentina and Mel are in
as they are talking about
nefarious things
that they are doing
that
since he overhears that he tries to call
Yelena to say don't go
It's too late. So he takes his limo
and drives there
and and comes after the big battle scene.
But Well, I was gonna say there is
that that whole coincidence of him being the
limo driver for Valentina
and,
Mel. Yeah. It I mean, he didn't intentionally
become their limo driver to find out this
information.
They at least gave him a character reason
to be there.
But the coincidence
and and you know how I feel the
coincidence. I'm not Only one coincidence per movie
or You get you get one. And this
is the one, is it not? I guess
it's the one.
Sure.
But use it well.
And I gotta be careful how much I
harp on that because
I've been doing some writing lately
on some time travel things,
and,
it's it's a bunch of short stories all
combined into one longer narrative.
I use a lot more than one coincidence
in there. So I don't always practice what
I preach, but I preach it. But I
agree. I mean, if you having one coincidence
maybe, like, in the first act or towards
the beginning of the story,
that usually that usually that coincidence helps to
push the whole story forward.
It makes it happen. Yeah. It makes it
happen. But I I agree. If you have
more than one, then it just becomes kind
of an eye rolling situation.
Yeah. You can do better. You can do
better. Mhmm.
So anything else about Red Guardian
before we move on to our the rest
of our cast?
He was really stuck about the Wheaties box
thing.
It's funny though because I saw a movie
poster walking into the theater
that was a Wheaties box,
but instead of Wheaties, it said Thunderbolts.
And I'm like, what is that? And then
they then he's talking about the Wheaties box.
I'm like, oh,
that's what that is. Yeah. And then there
actually is a Wheaties box.
And
oh,
okay.
That whole scene where he's trying to get
the lady to buy the Wheaties
and trying to get her to see him
on the box.
Yeah. And I was looking at that at
that grocery store. I'm like, okay. Is this
a Kroger? I I I know of a
few I know of a few grocery stores
in the Atlanta area. I'm like, that looks
like kind of like a Kroger.
They, that the joke
could have fallen
flat,
but it works because it's him. Yeah. And
it also works because it is him
wanting to be a part of Americana,
you know? And and you have the whole
the whole soccer team thing
with Yelena when she was a kid and
so that that sports
you know American sports kind of a thing.
It it works
but
that one walked a line. I didn't feel
like it was stupid.
The the limo hearing the nefarious plan
from our villains
because he was driving their limo, that didn't
work as well for me. I thought it
was silly. Too silly.
Is this our first movie where we get,
like,
a family connection in the Avengers
or an Avengers like team? Think so.
Okay.
I mean, I know they're not genetically family,
but they are Well,
They're adopted family, I guess. Wanda and Quicksilver.
Oh, that's right. Yes. Okay. They would be.
Yes. Okay. So Okay. Yelena goes
on this final mission for Valentino.
For Valentino
and this final mission is to destroy
the this evidence stuff
in a bunker
underground
and she goes and
she is
following Ghost. And her mission is to kill
Ghost. And then
John Walker comes as well, and his mission
is to kill
Yelena. And then Taskmaster shows up,
and her mission is to kill John Walker.
And Ghost is already there and her mission
is to kill Taskmaster. It's
silly when you say it out loud,
but the plan that Valentina has is send
them all down there to kill each other
and then kill them all and destroy the
rest of the evidence of the secret thing
they were working on.
And so this is where we get our
first moments of them together.
And, of course, it's a superhero situation. So
what are they gonna do when they meet?
They're gonna fight.
And
the most shocking thing out of this fight
scene
is Taskmaster.
I mean, they're all using their powers, all
doing things, you know, but
Taskmaster
can mimic anyone's moves
and learn their their style and and use
their weapons.
But Ghost just appears
using her fade in powers or,
whatever you call that.
Phase powers or?
I can't remember what what they call it
when they they talk about, like, Shadowcat or
Kitty Pryde. But,
yeah. She just fades in front of Taskmaster
and shoots her in the head.
She's done. Yeah. Well, she can't, Taskmaster cannot
replicate that kind of
ability.
And it happened too fast for her to
react
to it. Yeah. Yeah. And but
she was in other scenes
in trailers.
Later scenes in the movie, I don't know
if they digitally put her into those scenes
or digitally took her out of those scenes.
And maybe that was part of reshoots as
we there's too much going on. Let's get
Taskmaster out of here. If we removed her
from the movie, we wouldn't even notice that
she was gone because I don't feel her
missing in any of those scenes.
But she was in those scenes in the
trailer, and now
she's dead.
Well,
this isn't the first time that we've seen
what we thought
one thing would be in a trailer and
have the movie be completely different or have
shots or scenes in a trailer that are
missing from the movie.
So I'm not surprised.
That's why I'm asking, like, is this something
where
they filmed it this way and took her
out after the fact, but it was too
late because she was already in trailers? Or
was it to trick you into thinking that
she was in those scenes, and then when
when she dies, it's, even more of a
shock?
I would have to go back and check
it, but I'm I would not be surprised
if she was,
added in
the trailer
Because that would be these these days, that
would be easy to do.
Well, and removing her would also be I
mean, not necessarily easy to do because
it's multiple scenes or whatever. But,
yeah.
So
Taskmaster her character arc is
she shows up
tries to kill people
and dies. Done. Also there's a guy in
a
surgical gown who just shows up in the
middle of their fight.
Hi.
I'm Bob.
Yeah. So there's four of them down there.
And then all of a sudden, they're all
gonna die. And they know they're all gonna
die because there's a incinerating
bomb
that's gonna go off and incinerate everything.
It's getting really hot
and there's a timer so they know
they're gonna die
if they can't get out of there. So
they have to work together to get out
of there. And that leads me to the
second dumb moment in this movie. I get
it. They created a scenario
where they went down and the elevator doesn't
work anymore. But when they do their
we're gonna push back to back and use
our the pressure of our legs
to take all four of us up this
gigantic
tall elevator shaft.
I'm watching this and just thinking okay this
is dumb.
This is
I get it. They need to get out
of some way
But movie writers,
change the scenario.
Don't have an elevator shaft. I don't care
what you do, but this is bad because
it just these are normal people.
They don't know that Bob has superpowers.
Bob doesn't know know that Bob has superpowers.
Exactly.
And, yes, John Walker, he has super soldier
serum. I thought they were gonna do something
where he, like, climbs the
side and he kind of drags them all
up with him or something.
And maybe Ghost becomes intangible so she doesn't
like have so much weight on him or
something like that. But no they're doing the
thing where they're pushing up against the you
know, pressure pressure on their backs and pressure
on their feet. And if one of them,
just one of them slips,
they're done. They're dead. Well, that that certainly
does create the tension in the scene. It
That I did like. Yeah. Because I and
I was I kept thinking during the entire
scene, what are they gonna do when they
finally get to the the the next floor?
Exactly. How are they gonna get out of
that? And and then they get up to
the next floor and they're like, oh, we
didn't think this far. Yeah. They had only
a lampshade on exactly what you're saying.
And I thought that was actually pretty good.
Yeah. It was it was a step too
far in the silliness direction for me. But
but at the same time, I would like
to see I wish I missed the show
Mythbusters because they would cover. Is it possible
to get up
20 feet doing this?
So I do believe it is possible
because I've seen people do it, but not
20 feet. I wouldn't say I'd seen that,
but
I have seen people do back to back
two people
going up, like, the a hallway
in a dorm room.
Or in in a dormitory rather, not in
the room, but in the hallway in the
dormitory.
So I I
is it possible? I think so.
Or maybe 50 feet. Maybe it was 50
feet, something like that. Well, this elevator, I
don't know. It was it was high. It
was, yeah, it was really high. They were
gonna die if they fell. Yeah.
Except for Bob
and maybe John Walker.
Maybe. There were three super soldiers
in this movie. Yeah. And two of them
had serums.
Yeah.
That was that was kinda funny too. So
all of them had serum.
Serum. It was Hydra. Oh, Hydra. That's good.
Mine was communist recreation.
John Walker took the serum too?
Yeah. He did. Yeah. So there are three
super soldiers. Yeah. But, yeah.
John had the serum,
and winter soldier, I guess, had serum as
well, didn't he? Yeah.
Yeah.
But his hydra serum. Yeah.
So okay.
So let's talk about John Walker.
His arc in this movie is
I'm not gonna use the word that they
use to describe him, but he's a jerk.
And
at the end of the movie, he's a
little bit less of a jerk. And he
also had to reveal to everyone that he's
not the family man that thought he was
because his family left him,
and he's been alone.
And
I felt bad for him. Yeah.
And, again, heart.
There was a heartfelt
character arc here.
And he's not a perfect guy,
and he doesn't get the the resolution he
gets is not that all of a sudden
his family comes back to him,
but he does get an opportunity to
actually be a hero and do some good
and save people. When when
the big bad comes, he's saving people.
And he finds a new family, a found
family. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They hate him until
they don't.
Yeah. Yeah.
And he has some good moments. He has
some good lines. We have some good moments
during the final fight sequence where they're saving
people from all the buildings falling and stuff.
Like, there's some
some good stuff there for him. And
Yeah.
It was
again,
heartfelt. It was heartfelt.
Yeah. And
probably the the third strongest
character arc in the movie for me. The
strongest being Elena, second strongest being Bob,
and and third strongest being John.
Yeah. Again, I wish I could go back
and rewatch these movies, but it's harder to
do that these days,
unlike before.
And it's not just a movie for him.
Like, you're you're talking about a whole series.
But, yeah, going back series for him. Yeah.
Just going back to a Falcon and and
the Winter Soldier. Yeah.
So John Walker and then you have Ghost
who, honestly, I don't remember much from her
character arc. I don't remember her character arc.
I'm I remember her being there.
Yeah. And that's kind of it. Yeah. She
was there, and and then she helps them
more.
So yeah.
And then of course there's winter soldier who
so they come up out of the elevator
and
Valentina is like oh we gotta kill them.
So she sends people after them and then
she's like oh don't kill them Bob's with
them don't kill them.
And so it's non lethal
on on the army's part on on Valentina's
people's part but
they had the big long fight.
Bob is the one who he kind of
almost sacrifices himself so they can get away.
He lets himself get shot but he does
not die because he's
not just Bob anymore.
He is part of the failed experiments
but it's not a failure.
Not when it comes to Bob.
They succeeded with him
and so they capture
Bob and take him to New York to
the Avengers Tower
and Yelena and John Walker and Ghost escape.
They get picked up by Red Guardian
in his limo
because he heard what was going to happen.
And then
we have a a chase scene
and they get rescued by Winter Soldier.
And they're not just Senator Bucky Barnes. Yeah.
But they're not just rescued by him. They're
arrested by him. He captures them. And Does
he have the power to arrest me?
Well, he has the power to tie them
up.
Yeah. And it seems like the president legislative
branch, not the executive branch.
So
and they say, hey. We gotta convince you
to be a good guy. Be a good
guy with us. Come on. Let's be good
guys.
And finally they convince him to go and
help Bob
so they go to the Avengers Tower
and they have a plan
and there's another fight sequence but it shut
down
And the blonde hair on Bob.
Well, I'll get in there. But No. No.
The costume
works
in the sense that it was a comic
book accurate
portrayal of that character.
You look good.
He looks like a comic book version
where they put him in the costume. But
Blonde hair. No. No. Just
I could handle the costume, but the hair,
no. No. He his natural hair color looks
fine. Well, it's funny because,
you know, they're they're hung up on the
hair. You know? Like, he's
it's like, I don't know about this color.
I feel like you're talking a little too
much about the hair.
But
Well, I think that was the point was
the hair color was just all wrong for
him.
Well, but, I mean, they call him the
golden guardian or whatever and, like, they have
these all these nicknames for him, but he's
the sentry.
And,
again, this is a character from the comics.
I've talked about it a little bit before.
But the whole point that character in the
comics is he was the most powerful hero
in the Marvel Universe
but
the most powerful villain was also
part of him
And so when he finally defeated the void
in the comics,
they made it so the entire Marvel universe
forgot him and rewrote
their own history by taking him out of
it. But he was friends with Peter Parker,
and Peter Parker actually got along with the
police and with J. Jonah Jameson
because he was working with Century. And the
x men weren't rejected by humanity
because of the work that they did with
the Century. And the fantastic four did things
with him. And
and then because of his battle with the
void, they had to make it so that
the Marvel universe completely forgot him, and he
forgot who he was himself.
And that was the only way they could
save the world
was to do that. So what you're saying
is there there is a situation where we
can get him and Tom Holland on the
screen together. Definitely.
And that would be really confusing
until Tom puts the mask on.
Unless they keep that blonde hair. It's true.
Maybe that's why they wanted the blonde hair.
No. I think it was so they could
make jokes about the hair.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So they they come and they fight.
They they confront Valentina,
but they end up fighting him because he's
on her side
and he's doing what she asks him to
do.
And there is
no contest
at all. He doesn't wanna kill them,
but he fights them
and,
like, they don't have a chance against him.
He is so powerful.
But the problem is he also carries his
own demons.
And
that's the void.
And because of the godlike powers that he
has,
the unresolved
issues that he has
rise to the top the top
and give us the void.
And so that's one of the things I
like about this. You have, like, the big
giant action set piece at the end,
but you have
the resolution
of this big giant action set piece comes
from
the character arc
of Bob.
And yes, basically,
they win the day by giving him a
great big hug.
Okay.
Is it cheesy?
You bet. But is it good?
You bet.
It is. Is giving someone who's depressed a
really great big hug true to life?
It may not be, you know, it may
not be the perfect solution, but,
you know, it doesn't hurt. It doesn't solve
all his problems, but what it does help
with that the with his problems is they're
coming to him and saying you're not alone.
Yeah. You're not alone.
And they have to come to that realization
themselves.
And then they come to him and that
you are not alone.
We are here.
We're here with you. We're standing with you.
We're standing for you.
And again, it's heartfelt.
Is it cheesy?
Yes.
But it's the right kind of cheese.
And it's it's cheese that says something good.
And that says, you know,
yeah. You're right, Samantha. You're not gonna solve
everyone's problems with a hug.
But it's a start, and and he's in
a better place in the post credit. So
yeah. So they defeat
him by hugging him. They defeat the void,
because he's I I love it. Like, he
goes and he's just punching the void. And
as he's punching the void, he's becoming
the void, you know? And
and then they come and they gather around
him. They fight to get to him,
and they're fighting for him.
And, man, I like it. I like it
a lot. Yeah. I
also liked that,
it seemed like that he was
sort of dusting people.
And Elena figures out that it's not exactly
a dusting. It's
it's,
he's taking them into their worst moments, and
she figures that if she runs towards the
explosion and not run away that
she can find she can fix the issue.
Yeah. Yeah. She
She's the brains of the operation.
It's a leap of faith.
100%
leap of faith because
she's trusting that the thing that happened to
her before when she touched his hand or
whatever
is actually what's happening.
But she steps in
and she's in her worst moment.
And
okay. So now what are we gonna do?
Let's let's confront this. And and she works
through it. And and now she finds his
worst moments, and they're fighting through his worst
moments. And there's funniness to it. There's it's
definitely funny.
The whole, you know, he used to be
a sign spinner.
And,
he's using the sign to to hit them
and stuff. And, you know, it's funny. But,
but again, it's it's heartfelt.
And this is how they find out about
John Walker's worst day, you know, and this
is how they
they find out, you know, they they find
the the void
through this where they find like some of
what Bob's worst moments were were when he
was the void and he killed people.
And, yeah.
I I appreciated what they were trying to
do
and say
with all of this. Yeah. I I just
that final act, I really love it because
it was so different,
but it was well executed
compared to other
avenger movies.
Yeah I really liked it.
The one bad thing is this means we
had two marvel movies in a row
that end by
helping the
the bad guy confront his inner demons
and
and the bad guy is not actually a
bad guy.
You know, so you have the red hulk,
that whole situation with the the flower petals.
Yeah.
And and that but
and and I feel like I like this
one better.
I I I did like this one better.
But that the last two Marvel movies, this
one and and,
Captain America Brave New World,
a lot of similarities.
There's a lot of similarities
in just the style of the movie
and the resolution
of the movie. So when it ends,
they go to confront Valentina.
And they step through
the canvas or whatever,
the tarp, because she
she stepped away. And what she stepped away
into was a press conference. And they follow
her, and now they're in a press conference.
And she says, these are my new Avengers.
And that's what the actual Ben.
Ben. Mhmm. I have an issue with the
name New Avengers.
Tell me.
I don't like it.
I think Thunderbolts is a is a better
name for the team. It is.
And New Avengers sounds like they're just copying
the name of the old Avengers or the
original Avengers. I don't wanna call them old.
That's the point, I think.
Yeah. But it's it's
it doesn't sound nearly as cool as thunderbolts.
No. I did like the origin of the
thunderbolts name, though. Yeah. I did like that.
Selena's,
soccer team. Soccer team. Yeah. Sponsored by
I forget
who.
I really like that. They should have they
should have put their foot down and say,
no. We're we are the Thunderbolts. Maybe we'll
see that in the future. I hope so.
But Well,
I mean, they're definitely setting up a rivalry
between
the actual Avengers
that
was getting kick started in the Captain America
movie Yeah. And the new Avengers
with a z.
I felt called out
because
some of you may know one of my
book series that I have it's called time
flies
with a z
and the reason
for the z was just to set it
apart to make it so it was easier
to trademark or whatever.
And. Yeah, I stand by it.
Okay.
I stand by it. But
I did feel a little called out.
What can I say? It was the nineties,
right?
They don't have that excuse.
And yet everything in the nineties was changing
that s to a z.
Or throwing in an x with, you know,
extreme no e.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So they are the new Avengers.
They are actually in Avengers Tower
now.
They have Bob on their team
who doesn't do much for them, but he
does do the dishes.
Yeah. I was wondering okay. So is he
just avoiding being a superhero at this point
because he's afraid of the void coming back?
I think he really can't remember how to
use his powers.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. I I I really think that's what
they're setting up there is he he can't
remember. And it's good too because, I mean,
he's if he is century
yeah. There's a little void thing. But but
even just from a story perspective,
he's basically the most powerful hero
of all. Like, he's he's just so he
you know, they they talk about how he
has the power. He's he's more powerful than
the avengers,
and there is an actual god on the
avengers,
you know, like,
And
so,
I they have to depower him, and they'll
have to find a good way to bring
back his powers, let him use his powers
a little bit, and then figure out how
do we not nullify our entire movie by
having him here just like Captain Marvel, really.
Yeah. So I wonder how he would,
stand up against,
Captain Marvel because she's pretty powerful too.
I think the intention is he's more powerful.
He's more powerful. Okay. I could be wrong,
and it really doesn't matter too much
if which one of them is more powerful.
They're they're really both of them very powerful,
and we'll just have to wait and see.
Maybe we'll just do some sort of thing
where everyone's swapping powers around and
they've already done that once. So When was
that? I can't Well, I'll just not remember.
Marvels. Oh. When Yeah. When the three of
them kept,
having their powers bounce around from between each
other Okay.
Is actually a really nice conceit that they
use to get around the fact that she's
so powerful.
Is is dealing with
added power, extra power, different powers,
and I I like that. That was a
good conceit that they used there.
Yeah.
So,
Valentina,
she makes it all work.
She
She's a spin doctor for sure. She is.
She is. There is one more character who
is a
not even an unsung hero. She's a sung
hero but Mel.
Yeah.
Mel. And and that was a good character
arc there too
where she just
gets pushed into doing the right thing
because she realizes
I wanna make the world a better place,
but the way we're doing this isn't working
well.
And Bucky pushes her
to do well, to do that do well,
do right.
And and she does.
And, and helps.
And because she helps, they are able
to do what they need to do to
win the day. Without her,
they would not have won. They would not
have been able to do what they did.
So She was the secret weapon.
She was. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So,
Mel,
good on you. Yeah. So we've talked about
characters. We've talked about plots. We've talked about
theme.
Stunts. I wanna mention the stunts.
Okay.
So
in previous MCU movies, it was very CGI
heavy. And with this movie,
the production
production team decided that
they were going to
do
the stunts as practical as possible.
I mean, there was some CGI in this
movie, but,
like,
Florence Pugh jumping off of that building,
she actually did it. And I think she's
in the Guinness Book of World Records now
for jump for the woman who's jumped from
the tallest
or second tallest building.
So that was Florence Pugh who actually did
that? Yeah. She and a,
one one of her stunt doubles both did
it. Yeah.
She she's gone into interviews saying, yeah. I
have zero fear of heights.
I could not do it. I could I
would not be able to get to the
edge of that building
on the roof.
Oh,
wow.
Yeah.
And she had to convince Feige to let
her do it too because the insurance company
would not cover her. Everyone wants to be
Tom Cruise.
Yeah.
She can be Tom Cruise if she wants
to. I'll I'll stay in the movie theater.
I'll just I'll just stay in the audience.
And, the, building blowing up in the beginning
of the movie where she's walking away, I
think she's holding a a gerbil. Hamster. And
she's on the phone, and she's like, hold
on one second. And she turns around, explosion.
That really happened. That was not CGI.
Yeah. A lot of these effects were they
were practical,
and I have to give it up to
the producers for making that choice because I
I
I like CGI. I think CGI has made
huge strides in the past thirty years,
but I I still like practical effects as
much as possible. And I understand there are
just some situations where it's it's
better to use the CGI, but
if you can use practically, use practical. Yeah.
That's cool. I did not realize that at
all. Mhmm. Alright. Well, I think
I think we should wrap this one up.
Do you have any final words?
I would like to thank our Patreon patrons,
Blessed Cheesemaker, Jeffrey, Andrew, Tazzle, and Edwin. Thank
you all so very much. And I would
also like to say thank you guys. We
appreciate you guys, and
thank you for,
you know, putting up with our sporadic schedule
sometimes. And
but yeah. Yeah. So join us. Welcome to
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That's pretty much it right now as far
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Yeah.
It is
very, very much appreciated.
Yeah.
I would like to say also
I am really sorry
Samantha
for
all those times when,
we were scheduling
things and I was you know I I
was doing my other job I was doing
my other job and you
know
just thinking about other superheroes
you know you know you know what other
superheroes I've been thinking about right Samantha?
I'll give you a hint. Cucumber.
Cucumber.
Thanks for listening to Welcome to Level seven.
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for listening, and godspeed.
Alright.
Well, I think that what we could talk
about for our post credit is just upcoming
superhero movies,
and not not cucumber ones. But,
Yeah. I totally thought moving into June that
we had Superman and Fantastic Four, but
rather than June, it is gonna be July.
July is gonna be the month for superheroes
this
year where we have Superman and Fantastic Four.
So so excited about both of those.
Samantha, I don't know. Are you excited about
about the Superman?
Do you want to see that? Yeah.
I will try to go see it. I
I am excited. Yeah. I'm I'm Nick
Nicholas Holt's playing Lex Luthor.
I mean,
that's excellent casting in my eyes.
I'm not too familiar with the actor who's
playing Clark Kent, Superman.
Though I have an issue is that he
kind of sorta reminds me of Nathan Fillion
a little bit, and Nathan Fillion is also
in this movie.
Yeah. But they do not look this is
not a Tom Holland,
Bill Pullman's son situation. You will not
you won't have any troubles telling them apart
because
Nathan Fillion looks very un Nathan Fillion like.
Yeah. It's just this actor
and Nathan, they they have similar noses
and face structure, and it's just every time
I see this guy, I'm like, is that
Nathan? No. That's that's that's
this new guy. So, yeah, I have to
look at him twice
to be sure.
So it's it's just I think that this
is so cool that that of course, I
thought it was June, but but in July,
you have these two big, you know, the
big DC
and the
really,
Superman is the
primary
character that put DC on the map as
far as, like,
action comics. And Yeah. You know, and so
you have Superman who who kind of was
the kick start for
for DC, and then you have Fantastic Four
who
they were kind of the what kick started
the the superhero age of Marvel Comics.
And and
and Fantastic Four is coming out two weeks
later.
So,
yeah, in July, you also have Jurassic World
and
you have
Madea's
destination wedding
and the remake of I know what you
did last summer
and the big one of course
Superman
you think about these three movies in the
same breath really Superman
Fantastic
Four Happy Gilmore two.
That's that's our July everyone like we
I can't wait Samantha to sit down with
hopefully you and Stewart to talk about Happy
Gilmore two because
that is complete surprise to me.
I had no idea that that was a
thing so I will watch it I will.
I will
too. But
yeah
was not expecting you to see that when
I was looking on the list
to see, oh, when is Superman actually oh,
first of all, I'm wrong about the month.
And second of all, happy Gilmore too.
Yeah.
We have casting connection between Thunderbolts and,
Superman. Wendell Pierce, who played another senator,
he's playing Perry White in this movie in
in the Superman movie. Yeah. Frank Riller's in
this movie too?
Okay. Also in September
is, the final Downton Abbey movie.
Spinal Tap two.
September. September. I did not know that there
was another Downton Abbey movie.
Yeah.
It's it they actually call it Downton Abbey,
the grand finale. We'll see about that.
Well, I haven't I haven't seen the last
movie.
Pam and I went and saw the first
movie in the theater, but then we never
got around to watching the last well, the
second one they did. The second one's really
cute.
It's it's just,
there's a moment of inversion between the upstairs
and downstairs.
You get to see that. It's it's just
really sweet. If you like the series, you'll
like the movie,
this the second movie. So yeah. But a
big big month in July,
and June is,
not as exciting as I thought it was
gonna be. Yeah. I was just looking at
it, and I'm like, there's not really much
here I would wanna go see,
which is fine because I'm gonna be very
busy in the next month. So You won't
have time to see it anyway. Yeah.
Alright. Well, everyone, thanks so much for listening.
Samantha, thank you for joining me again. And,
we still need to get together and talk
about Daredevil
season finale. So
that is I have my notes right here
ready to go. I cannot stay up late
to talk about it, but
I'm ready to go. Alright.
To everyone else who's listening right now, thank
you so much for spending time with us.
We appreciate you, and godspeed.