Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

(2025)

As we finish Phase WGAS? and move on into Phase WGAS? we find a new batch of “heroes/miscreants” who reluctantly want to be a team almost as much as the audience reluctantly wants to see Disney scrape from the bottom of the barrel to contrive another Marvel movie.

Such were my thoughts when I first saw the trailer for Thunderbolts asterisk.

But it did have Bucky in it. And Alexei (aka The Red Guardian) was pretty entertaining in the Black Widow movie [can’t for the life of me remember the title of that film]. Also, after the first week, audience scores were surprisingly high so I figured I’d give this a chance. I mean let’s be serious. What am I going to do, not see a Marvel movie? They’ve gone the way of Mountain Dew, Monopoly, and Risk. Just slap the Marvel brand onto a film and I’ll lap it up no matter how awful it is… with the exception of Iron Man 3. That film is dead to me.

It had jokes. It had drama. It had action. Can’t complain on any of these fronts. Most of the characters were decently enjoyable still. I’m starting to love Wyatt Russel. Yeah, he’s kind of the surly unhinged “Not My Captain America” infamously introduced in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but even that character is kind of growing on me. Russel himself is impressing me more and more though. Honestly the only thing I can imagine better than Kurt Russel is TWO Kurt Russels.

The character Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus I find utterly unlikable; not even in that “villain you love to hate” kind of way. There’s nothing fun about her whatsoever. Frankly I wish she would go away. You can’t fool us with that fancy name! We all know you’re just Elaine from “Seinfeld” gone mad with power!

Yelena Belova played by Florence Pugh has a lot of heart. The relationship with her father is relatable and while Alexei can seem comically overbearing, it’s clear he is the limo-driving force behind this team’s morale, such that it is. Yelena voices my own reluctance to accept these “new” characters but Alexei’s enthusiasm wins me over just as it inspires Yelena.

If I go any further with details I’ll start spoiling things and I don’t want to do that. I’ll just say I found the situations that lead up to the climax of the film a bit far-fetched even by marvel standards, and yet I liked the way it was ultimately resolved. The epilogue with Evil Elaine, however, I think should have gone down entirely different. I am curious to see what happens with these characters so… good job Disney. I’m officially invested. 

I have to say though, I guess I was erroneously expecting there to be some connection to Thaddeus E. “Thunderbolt” Ross. This might just be my bias toward the Red Hulk but the movie and this guy share a title and Thunderbolts* came out right after Captain America: Brave New World which featured Harrison Ford as Thunderbolt Ross aka Red Hulk. Why couldn’t Red Hulk join or even organize the team? That would have been friggin’ amazing! I’d love to see Red Hulk fight Evil Elaine.

Last thing, I promise. I heard the baseline to “Where is My Mind” by The Pixies throughout the film’s entire musical score but the song was not credited. What gives? It was even used in one of the trailers. I’ve read that the band Son Lux, who did the music for the film, undeniably used elements from “Where is My Mind”. So why no credit? Maybe I missed it. Nevertheless, it is cool to hear an epic version of that song. This is the first soundtrack to a movie I wanted to listen to apart from the film in a long time.