Thunderbolts*

Last night I went to a Thursday preview of Thunderbolts* with my nephew and I can’t remember when I was so excited for an MCU movie!  Luckily, I was not disappointed because I absolutely loved it!  In fact, this is the first time I can say I loved an MCU movie without qualifications in a really long time!  CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is being investigated for illegal activities by Congress so she has her assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan) get rid of the evidence against her, including the covert agents who work for her.  Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Antonia Dreykov/ Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and Ava Starr/ Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) are lured to a secret underground facility where they are tricked into attacking each other and Ghost kills Taskmaster before they realize that it is a trap.  They also discover a mysterious man named Bob Reynolds (Lewis Pullman) who creates a diversion that allows them to escape before he is captured by de Fontaine.  The group is eventually recovered by Alexei Shostakov/ Red Guardian (David Harbour) and then apprehended by Congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) but they reluctantly decide to work together to rescue Bob when they learn that he was the subject of one of de Fontaine's secret experiments and that, because he now possesses superhuman strength, she plans to use him as the weapon Sentry.  This is very character-driven because they all have a reckoning over the things they have done, especially Yelena because she must reconcile her trauma in order to help Bob face the darkness he feels inside.  As someone who has struggled with mental health issues, I think the portrayal of the Void, the alter ego of the Sentry, is one of the best and most accurate depictions of depression that I've seen (I actually had tears in my eyes several times during the scenes with the Void because they resonated so deeply).  I really enjoyed seeing Bucky take on a leadership role as someone who has also had to make peace with his actions and the relationship between Alexei and Yelena is incredibly poignant (even though Alexei provides much of the comic relief).  Pugh is such a great actress and she gives an incredibly emotional performance throughout Yelena's arc (I was also really impressed with Pullman).  Finally, all of the action set pieces (many of which feature practical effects) are a lot of fun but I found the sequence where the Thunderbolts protect people from the Void and then are hailed as heroes to be especially moving.  It was so much fun to feel the same exhilaration that I once did for the MCU again and I am now really looking forward to Phase Six!

Note:  There is a mid-credits scene and an end-credits scene.  They are both really good!