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Marvel

Thunderbolts* – Jake Schreier (2025)

And yet another branch on the Marvel tree. The use of a limited group of actors for different characters is starting to become confusing.

“Thunderbolts*” plays in a dystopian American city. The first main character is Yelena, a young gun for hire who suffers from “the void”. She wants more in her life, especially in social terms. Later we run into her father, David Harbour, who plays Alexei Shostakov. This “Red Guardian” is also the father the Black Widow, but Yelena’s sister was killed when just a girl.

Anyway, Yelena is sent on a mission where she meets another few old (and ‘demoted’ Captain America, the Winter Soldier) and new (Ghost) fighting machines. Even though they are supposed to kill each other, they cooperate and after a whole series of fighting and shooting, they team up and become the New Avengers.

Just another Marvel with amusing fighting scenes, a descent joke here and there and an overly dramatic plea against loneliness and for friendship.

Captain America: Brave New World – Julius Onah (2025)

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The speed with which new Marvel movies are put out is staggering. This time they did not introduce yet another new set of heroes, but we have a new episode in the series on the oldest of Marvel heroes: Captain America.

I am unsure if I already saw that it is no longer Buck Rogers who is Captain America, but Sam Wilson. In any case, Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) used to be the bad guy, now he is the president of the USA. He is actually trying be good and do something for the world.

A material even stronger than “Vibranium” has been found, Ross tries to prevent falling it into the hands of one country. Of course there is a bad guy with other plans and he elaborately plans the downfall of both Ross and Captain America.

But you know what? Captain America saves the world!

Deadpool & Wolverine – Shawn Levy (2024)

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Probably in the last week of it showing on the big screen, I saw this year’s summer hit. Not that it was very high up on my list after having watched a Deadpool and a Wolverine film, but it was the least uninteresting film playing when I had some time to kill.

With the typical (and fairly boring) adolescent humour, we follow Deadpool, who needs to find the dead Wolverine in order to save his timeline.

The film contains many references to other movies, ‘Hollywood culture’, the competition and some of these jokes are actually somewhat amusing. Also, as the story goes on, we run into other Marvel characters. Not the Avengers that Deadpool wants to join, but characters like Blade or Elektra.

The film contains a lot of bloody fighting scenes and bad language. I guess this is Marvel trying to appeal to the growing-up audience. Judging the rating at IMDb.com (7.8) this seems to work, but I do not really get much further than: somewhat amusing, here and there an alright joke.

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania – Peyton Reed (2023)

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In the first film the mother of the family was saved from the “quantum world”. This time the entire family finds itself there, allowing the creators to make a weird and (too) computerized strange world which is in some ways remarkably alike the normal world.

Of course the family Pym / Van Dyke encounters a foe, but also rebels who they will help in their cause and at the same time attempt to get back to their own dimension.

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 – James Gunn (2023)

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The third “Guardians” focusses on ‘Rocket the Racoon’. Het gets wounded in the opening scene and the other guardians have to dig into his past in order to be able to help him.

Rocket was created in the laboratory of a mad scientist who is trying to create a perfect and peacefull society. His creations that are not perfect, such as Rocket, are disgarded. Needles to say that that did not work with Rocket.

The Guardians are once more joined by Nebula. I am unsure if space dog Cosmo was already in an earlier volume.

As we know the “Guardians” films this one is a bit more on the friend-group comedy side of the Marvel films.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine – Gavin Hood (2009)

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As for the other character of the summer 2024 movie hit, the Wolverine appears to be a personage from the X-Men films that forms another part of the Marvel franchise than the ‘cinematic universe’?

Anyway, two boys become werewolves, they keep on fighting wars along the centuries and in the end are picked up by a man named “Stryker” who has an army of other “mutants”. Logan does not like that job and leaves, only to be hunted down by his brother many years later. He is mutated even more and turns against his former employer, by then going by the name of “Wolverine”.

What is a bit odd is that Ryan Reynolds is also in the film and he is also a fast-talking guy. He is turned into a Frankenstein type mutant killer named “Deadpool”, but this is quite a different Deadpool than the one from the 2016 movie, or is it?

Anyway, another Marvel revenge action film.

Deadpool – Tim Miller (2016)

Because I knew neither character from the new Marvel blockbuster “Deadpool & Wolverine” I decided to watch the first “Deadpool”.

The movie is on the screwball side filled with boring (usually sex) jokes. It does not help that I am not particularly fond of Ryan Reynolds. A good point is that his girl is the beautiful Morena Baccarin whom we know from “Gotham“.

Deadpool is an antihero. He is an annoying murderer for hire, but when he gets cancer, he is transformed into a superhero. The side effects of the procedure turn this into a revenge movie though.

So we have an invincible, smart talking guy, going after the people who wrecked his life. Nothing very interesting or even enjoying.

Eternals – Chloé Zhao (2021)

Marvel introduced yet another new troupe into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The eternals are a party of extraterrestrial super heroes, a team of which has been sent to earth to protect humanity against a type of alien super monsters. Also the eternals help humanity evolve.

The story is made a bit too ‘grand’. These eternals are -of course- ‘gods’. They are even called Gilgamesh, Ikarus, etc. They have been around for 7000 years and can’t really interfere in human affairs.

The monsters have supposedly been long whiped out, but they return and a new battle ensues. The eternals have tried to live relatively normal lives and now have to get the team together again to fight the improved version of the monsters.

Besides a few joking references to other Marvel characters, there is no connection to the ‘Cinematic Universe’.

The film is not the most interesting in the Marvel franchise.

Iron Man 3 – Shane Black (2013)

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This time no Romanov or Fury, “Iron Man 3” is a ‘stand-alone’ Marvel. Stark has anxiety attacks but still has to fight a bad guy.

The story is not too interesting, but there are great parts of Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce. The latter looks quite the same as he does in “Memento“.

The film does not really have surprises. The story taps into the terrorist scare and of course the opponents have something that even Iron Man cannot simply brush aside. Towards the weak end, the story is wrapped up in the last five minutes.

Iron Man 2 – Jon Favreau (2010)

Iron Man / Tony Stark is not exactly my favourite Marvel character, so I skipped the “Iron Man” movies so far. Actually. In “Iron Man 2” he is not so bad. Perhaps because he is a bit of the tragic character.

In “Iron Man 2” we have both Gwyneth Paltrow (as Pepper of course) and Scarlett Johansson (as Natalie Rushman / Natasha Romanoff, apparently not yet “Black Widow“) which is a plus. And Mickey Rourke is an amusing bad guy. We also see the dawn of the Avengers, as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) yet has to recruit Iron Man for his team.

For the rest, Iron Man is hunted by Ivan Vanko, plus the competition tries to outsmart him. Together these opponents wreck havoc which Iron Man sets right, without the help of the other Avengers, as that team appears to be non-existent yet.

So perhaps “Iron Man 2” fits in the larger Marvel story and was it a good idea to watch it after all. I suppose I might now also watch “Iron Man 3” (2013).