Thunderbolts really is that good.

Believe the hype: Thunderbolts really is a Top 5 entry into the MCU. With the heart of Black Panther, the practical effects of Winter Soldier, and the misfit quippiness of Guardians, recency bias is telling me this is my favorite film they’ve produced yet (but I’m sure after time has passed it would slide down a few notches).

First of all, there’s not enough praise to heap onto Florence Pugh. Marvel hasn’t produced a better performance than that and it made me want to see Yelena as THE central figure of the MCU going forward. I don’t know how it would work, but I desperately want it to be so.

But to me, the main thing Thunderbolts has going for it that most other superhero films don’t is the fact that I can’t relate to the Big Bad when that villain is trying to blow up the planet, destroy a timeline, or wipe out half of all life in the universe. It’s fun to watch when done well, but there’s nothing that will especially move me on a human level about watching various BEINGS with similar degrees of invincibility shoot sparkles at each other.

Without spoiling it, the Big Bad in Thunderbolts ultimately turns out to be something most people have encountered with different levels of success, and the way it plays out makes me thankful for my own team of Thunderbolts.

I personally don’t believe the MCU is as bad as so many people make it out to be. I think it’s suffering a bit from the comedown experienced after mass saturation when a few tastemakers turn on The Popular Thing and other people subconsciously follow suit. I’ve never hated a Marvel movie and I usually go see each one on opening day, so I didn’t go into Thunderbolts with an expectation of subpar material. I also didn’t go into it with the expectation that it would be able to stand alone as a film outside of the extremely large, tangled, overwhelming network of previous material. In short, if you haven’t seen a Marvel movie in years and you feel like too much has happened for you to be able to keep up, Thunderbolts is the movie to see. You’ll enjoy it even if you’ve forgotten who every character is.

Score: 4.5 / 5