Features/Entertainment

Student Council (Mrs. Noviello)

President - Sabrina O'Connor

Vice President - MK Young

Secretary - Matthew Keough

Treasurer - Ella Cain

Freshmen Class Council (Mr. Pollaro)

President - Monica Shattuck

Vice President - Lauren Coseo

Secretary / Historian - Rose Daly

Treasurer - Alivia Gowan

Sophomore Class Council (Ms. Krebs)

President - Antonio Campanella

Vice President - Jordyn Tremblay

Secretary / Historian - 

Treasurer -  Christopher O'Brien

Junior Class Council (Mrs. Agan)

President - Elle Carvellas

Vice President - Ahura Mwesige

Secretary  - Kaylin Hooks

Historian - Sadie Potter

Treasurer - Lilyana Burnett

Senior Class Council (Mrs. Ruppenthal)

President - Payton Sutryk

Vice President - Ellie Green

Secretary - Anna Utterback

Treasurer - Charlotte Welliver

Historian - Colin VonBevern

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is no longer in its stride, there is no denying that. The franchise was once a staple of modern cinema, which is easy to see as the franchise’s conclusion, Avengers: Endgame, is the second most successful movie of all time. The momentum of excitement has been slowing since then, especially with the excessive amount of content being produced in the 2020s, with movies and Disney+ streaming shows. There are still great projects occasionally, but there are more mediocre shows than good films. However, with the release of Thunderbolts*, people are finally starting to come around to the MCU again and become more appreciative of this franchise.

The movie follows Yelena Belova, played by Florence Pugh, who is a character that was introduced as the sister of the star of Marvel’s Black Widow, which is not required viewing for Thunderbolts*. She depressingly mopes through her job as a contract assassin and black ops agent, with little to no fulfillment. Her father, former Russian Captain America copycat Red Guardian, played by David Harbour, suggests she take a public-facing heroic role like her sister to feel better about herself. Yelena convinces her employer, the mysterious CIA operative Val, to let her take the public role, after one more mission to take down a rogue agent who is about to steal from a covert vault. After Yelena makes her way to find the operative, she is attacked by John Walker, also known as US Agent, another black ops enforcer. Soon, all of these different agents are fighting each other, including the phasing villain Ghost from Ant-Man and The Wasp, and the copycat combatant Taskmaster, until Yelena realizes that the vault is about to explode and Val has sent them there to die. Now these rogues, along with an amnesiac stranger they found in the vault named Bob, and with the help of Congressman and MCU staple character Bucky Barnes, must get their revenge and work their way to redemption.

The cast of Thunderbolts* is phenomenal. Sebastian Stan has always played the character of Bucky as a stoic, grumpy hundred-year-old man, and now we see the character start outside of his comfort zone and work his way back to heroics. Hannah John-Kamen plays Ghost with the same attitude and sarcasm she brought in the character’s last appearance. Wyatt Russell plays the rejected Captain America, John Walker, with more intensity and jadedness than he did in the character’s debut in the Disney+ show, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. David Harbour’s energy as Red Guardian is so magnetic, and he steals every scene he’s in. Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays Val with a very sarcastic yet intimidating factor, which keeps her as an unpredictable villain for the whole watch. The true stars of the movie are the lead, Florence Pugh, who has the best dramatic scene in the movie, and the character of Bob, played by Lewis Pullman. Pullman makes this mystery man the most sympathetic character in the movie, and he also helps tie the whole theme of depression and emptiness together. Despite there being so many characters introduced in previous projects, the writing and the performances make it digestible for any new viewer.

The incredible crew of this movie also deserves recognition. The writer-director Jake Schreier, who was hired for this movie immediately after his miniseries Beef swept awards season, brought a well-defined, depressing theme. Other crew members, like composers Son Lux and production designer Grace Yun, have all worked on films for the prestigious distribution company A24. Jake Schreier made an intentionally weird fake “Absolute Cinema” trailer to highlight the amount of talent from other high-valued projects, and Marvel ended up using the trailer as part of the marketing to draw in other types of audience members. It is no surprise Marvel did this; they have been in a rough spot lately.

In 2019, Disney changed CEOs from the respected Bob Iger to Bob Chapek, who insisted on producing as much content as possible from all of the company’s branches, for theaters as well as their streaming service. This, along with the pandemic giving everything a delay, is what led to the MCU releasing five streaming shows and four movies in 2021 alone as compared to their output before, which was at most three movies annually. Even when Bob Iger returned to clean up what Chapek left behind, there were already messy, rushed-out projects ready to be released, like the undeserved bomb that was The Marvels in 2023. General audiences are not as knowledgeable about the behind-the-scenes drama, so they have only noticed the drop in quality and production in the MCU output of the early 2020s. Despite some people always focussing on the mediocre or bad, there are still movies coming out that receive high acclaim, like the multiversal spectacular Spider-Man: No Way Home and the beloved Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3. Yet, despite the high praise these films generally receive, you can still notice the unfinished visual effects and rushed subplots.

This is why Thunderbolts* is so important. It is the first movie under Marvel’s current creative overhaul since Bob Iger came back to Disney and gave the company’s creative branches more leeway. With all of the talent involved, you can tell how this movie was almost designed to be executed greatly. Even the visual effects workers have been given more time once again to fully polish their work. Despite it seeming like this movie could have been a hit, it was pulled out of most theaters on May 29th, not even a full month after its release on May 2nd. So, if you can find it still in a theater near you, Thunderbolts* is an exceptional action-drama about the struggle of depression and fulfillment that is worth the ticket.