2025 MARVEL MOVIES REVIEWED
Hi there, hello.
I am, unfortunately, a giant fan of Marvel comics and their respective movies. The only problem with this is that I have to watch in horror as the execs at Disney make some of the worst decisions known to man. I could not be less excited for Doomsday and most of that is due to their decision to bring RDJ back from the dead. I have not seen any major Marvel movie this year, so why don't I rectify that? This post will be me reviewing all the major MCU films this year, those being Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and the hotly anticipated Fantastic Four: First Steps. Without further ado, let's get into it.
(also spoiler warning for every movie listed, but 3 of these came out months ago, they should be old news by this point)
Captain America: Brave New World is the only movie on this post I didn't want to watch, and that's mostly because the trailer made it look so bad and cheap and generic. After watching the movie, I can confirm that this is indeed bad and cheap and generic.
It's so weird because I felt absolutely nothing towards this movie, but I still fucking hated it. For one thing, the plot is so boring. Sam Wilson's old super soldier friend has been brainwashed and almost shot the president, who is Thaddeus Ross for some reason, and now he needs to prove him innocent, but there's no tension because nobody dies in this movie, and there's no mystery because we know that he was brainwashed in the first place since we know that can happen in this world. The only mystery at play in this story is who's pulling the strings and what their motive is, but the answers to both of those questions are underwhelming. The villain is revealed to be Samuel Stern, a character I forgot was even in the MCU, and his motive was to cause a war between Japan and America over a Celestial, something I could've seen from a mile away. Oh yeah, this movie also ties up loose ends from The Incredible Hulk and The Eternals, two of the worst MCU movies. I'm so glad all 2 fans of those movies got closure on their stories, but for the rest of us, this just feels like a waste of time.
I mentioned this earlier, but Thaddeus Ross also plays a large part in this movie because he becomes the president of the United States off screen, and in a twist, it's revealed in a shocking plot twist towards the end of the movie that he was slowly poisoned by Stern over time and he turns into Red Hulk. I've heard from everyone before I watched the movie that it seems like the writers intended the Red Hulk reveal to be a plot twist, only for the marketing team to realize that nobody would would this movie if it wasn't advertised front and center that there would be a big monster at the end. That's both really hilarious and really sad. The fight between Sam and Ross at the end is honestly not worth the buildup; it's slow, boring, uncreative, ugly, and it's honestly way too easy for Ross to be talked down given what we've seen of the normal Hulk.
Aside from those weird aspects, I have nothing to say about this movie. This movie is boring as hell in every conceivable way. The writing is boring, the characters are boring, the music is boring, the action and effects are bad, but not in a way that's fun or interesting, just in a boring way, the post credits scene is just Stern going "they are coming" and not elaborating. I will never think about this movie ever again after this review is posted, and if we're being honest, neither will you. 3/10
Ok, we've eaten our vegetables, it's time we get to our dessert. Thunderbolts* absolutely shocked me with how great it was, even with the bucketloads of praise that have been heaped onto the movie since its release. Aside from Bucky, I wasn't really interested in any of these characters in any other MCU project, but thankfully, this movie made all of them really fleshed-out characters and I was rooting for their weird-ass alliance by the end.
Everyone, except for Taskmaster, who died early on into the movie and nobody else seemed to care much about her. I'm kinda mixed on this; on the one hand, it's a shame that Marvel couldn't figure out a proper way to adapt one of their best and most unique villains into the MCU and instead of writing her character better than she was in Black Widow, they just killed her off and called it a day. On the other hand, I wasn't a big fan of this iteration of Taskmaster and it is really funny to have her domed so early on in the movie despite promoting her as an essential part of the new team. While I'm on the subject of negatives, the humor was a bit distracting for me. I like the humor in the MCU when it's done well, but in this movie, it just feels a bit tonally inconsistent with the rest of the movie. You'd have extensive scenes about these characters dealing with their traumas and having heavy discussions about depression and bipolarity only minutes after a scene where people skitter up an elevator shaft ass-to-ass. It's more apparent if you've watched the movie.
Really, those are my only problems with the movie, and I liked pretty much everything else about it. Having the plot be centered around a bunch of mercenaries trying to avoid being killed by the politician who hired them while she's trying to clean up her image is a great way to have these anti-heroes be forced to work together, and the scenes of them learning to trust each other and act as a team are great because they have such great chemistry with each other. Yelena being the cynical leader, Walker being the hothead, Ava being the more grounded one and Bob being the regular guy with untapped powers works surprising well here, especially since they're all written incredibly well. Ava and Walker aren't the best characters, but they're a lot of fun to see tear shit up and they get plenty of depth in this movie. Bucky was great, and having his plotline revolve around being a newcomer in politics trying to convict Valentina of her crimes made a lot of sense. Plus, he gets some of the best action scenes in the movie; I wanted to cheer when he showed up in the limo chase. On the complete opposite side side of the spectrum, Alexei is one of the funniest characters we've gotten in the MCU and it helps that he's just a great character on top of it. You can tell he really wants to be there for Yelena and for her to see him as someone she can rely on for help, but doesn't know how to. The Wheaties bit was also really cute, I'm glad that got some payoff in the post-credits scene.
The two best characters in the whole movie, though, and the best parts of the whole movie are Yelena and Bob. I already liked Yelena as a character, but this movie propelled her to being my favorite new character in the MCU. Her struggles with depression and feeling aimless now that everyone she loves and cares about either left of is just dead was heartbreaking, and the scene of her breaking down in tears and airing out all her insecurities after the third-act breakup made me tear up a bit. This is made even better by how she helps Bob in the Void deal with his bipolarity. The reveal of the Void persona was genuinely frightening and having that be the manifestation of Bob's depression putting people in New York in an infinite loop of reliving their worst moments is really compelling. Plus, seeing everyone come together to support Bob in the void and give him one big ol' group hug was heartwarming and a great way to resolve the story. It turns out the way to deal with depression was through the power of friendship, who knew Thunderbolts* and My Little Pony had something in common.
I'm now excited to see what Marvel has cooking up for the New Avengers, even though I was spoiled by that twist because of an official poster for the movie made by Marvel themselves. I hope somebody got fired for that blunder. Still, this is the best MCU movie we've gotten since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and for that reason, I'm giving this movie an 8/10.
We're finally at the last Marvel movie of the year, and I immediately want to give it a 0/10 because it doesn't do the, "Say that again," meme from the 2014 Fantastic 4 movie. It's like they don't know their own audience. Aside from that massive blunder, I had a lot of fun with this movie, even though the flaws are more immediately noticeable than other great superhero movies I saw this year.
Let's get one of them out of the way right now, probably my biggest problem with the movie is how they tackle Johnny Storm's character. I wasn't the biggest fan of him in the comics, and based on the trailers, I thought he was just gonna be comic relief like he was in the 2006 movie. No, he's a pretty major character in this movie and he even gets his own side plot where he he deciphers Shalla-Bal, the Silver Surfer's native language and tries to get her to betray Galactus at the end. It's honestly not a bad idea, but a few things needed to happen in order for this plot to really work, and that's either a) establishing Johnny as a linguistics master to make this natural for him to do, or b) making Johnny and Shalla's relationship more endearing so we root for him to help her do the right thing. Neither of those happened. Johnny's crush on Shalla just seemed so played-out and the face-turn just felt so telegraphed, so I didn't really feel much towards this side plot outside of boredom. To be fair, I did get some ironic enjoyment from the scene of Johnny speaking to her in her language, mostly because it just reminded me of those videos of white guys going into a Chinese restaurant and speaking Mandarin at the workers.
It's a shame, because aside from Johnny, the main reason why this movie works is because all the characters are written well and have a great rapport with each other. It's evident from the first scene of the family having dinner together that everybody loves each other and has each other's backs, which is exactly what I wanted out of this movie. I especially loved the Thing in this movie, he's just a super chill guy who's fittingly more grounded than the other characters. I love his relationship with Johnny and how it's mostly playful bickering while still supporting each other during hard times. I liked Reed and Sue's conflict throughout the movie regarding their baby; the conflict of whether or not giving Franklin up to save the world in a fucked-up trolley problem is the right thing to do is super compelling. And even though I didn't much care for Johnny's side plot, I will say that Shalla-Bal is great in this movie. Not only does she get the coolest bits of action where she's surfing through cosmic waves and on lava, but I did like her coming to terms with her basically dooming inhabitants of other planets just so she could save the people she loved. The parallels are obvious, but it was effective.
I honestly thought that I wasn't going to like Galactus in this movie given how volatile of a character to get right, but I thought he was a great villain here. Just the sheer dread and terror of this world-ending threat coming to Earth is felt throughout the entire film, and he truly does feel insanely powerful just from him walking through New York, completely unaffected by most of what the four did to him. I also like the character choice of having his motive behind targeting Earth specifically be to have a successor to inherit the power cosmic, dooming Franklin to an eternity of hunger and destruction. The final battle between him and the four is incredibly good, too, much like all the action scenes in this movie. The chase between the four and Shalla close to a neutron star was breathtakingly beautiful, and I like that they throw in references to other Fantastic Four material, like the recreation of the first Fantastic Four comic cover. I didn't much care for the effects in this movie, but I think that's due to the fact that this movie got hit the "underlit modern movie curse."
My favorite part of this whole movie, though, was the overall aesthetics. I adore the decision to have the entire movie be set in a retro-futuristic Earth, kind of like the live-action Jetsons remake that we hopefully won't get. I am a sucker for what people in the 50's and 60's thought futuristic technology was going to look like, with all the rounded metals and big chonky buttons, and all that is front and center in this movie, fitting for a comic book series from the golden age of comics. Herbie especially was a delightful little guy to look at and he needs to be protected for as long as he's in movies. I also adored the music and how it's a combination of retro movie scoring and choral chanting, Giacchino simply cannot make a bad score. The Jack Kirby inspiration is put at the forefront of this movie, made apparent with the quote from him at the end of the credits and the fact that this universe, Earth 828, is named after his birthday. That was touching to see.
This movie is an utter delight and, for the first time, I am actually excited about watching Avengers: Doomsday next year. If Marvel can build off of the goodwill they got with audiences thanks to this movie and Thunderbolts*, then they'll be on the right track in the future.
7/10, obligatory fuck you to Regal Cinemas, thanks for making the movie-watching experience ten times worse than it has to be.
