THUNDERBOLTS: The New Avengers (2025) arrived on Disney + last weekend so I finally caught it. And with one glaring weakness, it deserves the enthusiasm that greeted it.
Yelena the Black Widow (Florence Pugh), the Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and US Agent (Wyatt Russell) all wind up at the same secret lab on missions for shady CEO Valentina di Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss). Her shadiness has her under Congressional investigation; now she plans to blow up the secret lab and also eliminate three people who know too much. Of course, this doesn’t work; they escape the lab with Bob (Lewis Pullman), the only survivor of something called the Sentry project (if you know Marvel’s Sentry, you know this is Not Good).
This was a fun, action-packed film with good characters mostly performed by good actors (Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes eventually joins in). I found Russell bland as US Agent and I could barely stand Louis-Dreyfuss — she’s annoying in the role and seems to think she’s still working in sitcoms. And given the amount of blood she has on her hands by the end, keeping her out of jail didn’t satisfy me either. Still, thumbs up for this one despite her. “Anyone else have any pointless childhood stories to tell?”
THE SCOTTISH PLAY (2019) has a director gathering a cast for a production of Macbeth, assuring them all the theater legends about a curse on the show are just legends. Meanwhile his Lady Macbeth (Tina Benko) has met up with the ghost of Shakespeare, who desperately wants to rewrite the show, having had 300 years to brood about where he got it wrong.
This one didn’t work for me. It’s so low key and quiet that it couldn’t hold my interest, and Shakespeare constantly talking in Shakespearian style (I give them a point for acknowledging that was a stage thing and not everyday Elizabethan speech) grew annoying more than engaging. “I am as far from my home as fish are from heaven.”
The third season of HPI ended with Morgane and Karadec not speaking and Morgane (Audrey Fleurot) discovering she’s pregnant but unsure of the father — it could be Karadec (Mehdi Nebbou) or a couple of other characters. Of course, there are still murders for the team to solve but now there’s also Lamaze class, identifying the father, bringing the subject up with the father, Karadec returning to the murder investigation team … The fifth season wraps up in France later this month, after which I assume it will air here on Hulu. “If head lice attack, let me remind you of my all-natural coconut oil remedy.”
Cover by Mark Bagley. All rights to images remain with current holders.
