While movie-goers haven't been as keen on the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Avengers: Endgame wrapped up the first match of Marvel movies back in 2019, a few of its theatrical releases still give fans what they're looking for, and one of the best-received post-Endgame entries is finally about to hit streaming.
If the header image didn't give it away, I'm of course talking about Thunderbolts* (which Disney gave a second name in a marketing stunt but apparently this title provides spoilers so I'm not going to refer to it as that). After releasing theatrically all the way back in May, Thunderbolts* is set to hit Disney Plus on Wednesday, August 27 (just a few days out, at the time of writing).
Thunderbolts* unites some of the MCU's previously-established heroes who haven't enjoyed their own story; there's Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova and David Harbour's Red Guardian from Black Widow, Wyatt Russell's John Walker from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes who's been in a fair few of the movies ands shows and a few new characters, including Lewis Pullman as Bob Reynolds.
They all need to team for a deadly mission, filling in for the Avengers who aren't available. The cast is rounded out by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Wendell Pierce.
Early viewers of Thunderbolts* reported that it had much more of an emotional throughline than many Marvel movies, something that Disney leant heavily on with trailers positioning it as a weepy drama as much as an action movie.
This strategy seemed to work as the movie enjoyed largely positive reviews and, at the time of writing, it sits at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. Only three post-Endgame Marvel movies have scores better than that: Spider-Man: No Way Home at 93%, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings at 92% and Spider-Man: Far From Home with 91%. The latest entry, The Fantastic Four: First Steps falls just short at 86%.
In terms of audience score, Thunderbolts* has 93% which actually puts it ahead of Endgame's 90%, though those aforementioned three movies still beat it by that metric.
Thunderbolts* rounded out Marvel's Phase Five which marked a low point of Marvel releases, at least according to critics and audiences. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania got just 46% and Captain America: Brave New World barely did better at 47%, with other movies including The Marvels at 62% and Deadpool & Wolverine at 78%. On the TV front things were largely better although one of the biggest releases, Secret Invasion, also came in at 53%. So it was a polarizing time for audiences and Thunderbolts* was the best-received movie of the bunch (on the TV front, an animated series called Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man beat it with 97%).
So it's hard to deny that Thunderbolts* is considered one of the best Marvel movies since Endgame came out, and now you can watch it at home with Disney Plus. And Marvel fans might want to continue their subscription after watching the movie with animated miniseries Marvel Zombies coming out at the end of September and live-action Wonder Man out in December.
