THUNDERBOLTS* : Tuesday 13th May 2025

I saw the PG Rated 'THUNDERBOLTS*' earlier this week, and this American Superhero film is the 36th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and serves as the final instalment in Phase Five of the MCU. This film is Directed by Jake Schreier who made his Directorial debut with 'Robot & Frank' in 2012 and would follow this up with 'Paper Towns' in 2015. Since then he has helmed numerous TV series including multiple episodes of  'Lodge 49', 'Kidding', 'Brand New Cherry Flavour' and 'Beef' as well as music videos for the likes of Benny Blanco, Kanye West, Justin Bieber and Kendrick Lamar. This film saw its World Premiere screening in London on 22nd April and was released in all major markets from 1st May. The film has generated positive critical reviews, and has so far grossed US$280M from a production budget of US$180M. 

The film opens with Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) sitting with her feet dangling over the edge of a tall skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She stands and promptly launches herself off the top, parachuting down about half the length of the tower before gliding inwards and stepping gently off about fifteen stories from the bottom. Once inside, she sets about destroying a laboratory on behalf of CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) to cover up her involvement with the O.X.E. Group's 'Sentry' superhuman experimentation project. 

As de Fontaine faces imminent impeachment for her work with O.X.E. Group, she separately sends Yelena, John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) to a secret O.X.E. facility buried a mile underground atop a remote mountain, under the pretense of killing a thief. In the ensuing confrontation, Ava kills Taskmaster and a mysterious man named Bob (Lewis Pullman) is released from a suspended animation pod in the room. 

After coming to the realisation that they were sent by de Fontaine to be incinerated along with any evidence of her misconduct, they put their differences aside and work together to escape from the deadly trap. De Fontaine learns from her Assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan) that the group has survived, including Bob, who was presumed dead during the Sentry trials. When she arrives at the site, the team have made it to the surface, and so Bob creates a diversion by drawing fire from de Fontaine's small but heavily tooled up army, allowing Yelena, Walker, and Ava to escape, only to sustain no injuries despite being shot at close range multiple times. Bob then uncontrollably ascends high into the air before passing out and crash-landing back at the compound, where he is captured and helicoptered back to the former Avengers Tower in Manhattan, which is mid-way through a serious make over and is now renamed the 'Watchtower'. 

De Fontaine intends to introduce Bob to the press as a super-powered protector akin to the Avengers, hoping the PR stunt will avert her impeachment. Meanwhile, Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian (David Harbour), who had overheard details of de Fontaine's plot while working as a freelance chauffeur, rescues Yelena, Walker, and Ava. Referencing Yelena's childhood soccer team, Shostakov refers to the group as the 'Thunderbolts'. 

De Fontaine's agents chase after the Thunderbolts before they are ultimately caught and tied up by Bucky Barnes aka Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), whose intention it is to have them testify at de Fontaine's impeachment hearing. Learning that Bob was a subject of one of de Fontaine's top-secret experiments, Barnes joins the group to head to New York to infiltrate the Watchtower. The Thunderbolts discover that de Fontaine has convinced Bob to join her side as a new superhero she plans to pitch to the media as a replacement for the Avengers called the Sentry. 

After easily overpowering the team and forcing them to retreat, Sentry develops a god-like delusion of superiority, turning on de Fontaine. However, Mel, incapacitates him with a failsafe kill switch. This triggers the emergence of the Void, Bob's destructive alter ego and the embodiment of his depression and insecurities created as a result of the procedure and his fractured psyche, who begins engulfing New York City in supernatural darkness, trapping its citizens in pocket dimensions based on their worst memories and fears.

Yelena realises that the only way to stop the Void is from within, and so she enters the darkness to reach Bob's consciousness. There, she faces her haunted past as a Black Widow and finds Bob hiding in a recreation of his childhood bedroom, where his father abused him. The other Thunderbolts join them, and together they travel back through various 'rooms' ultimately to the memory of Bob's initial experimentation in Malaysia, where he volunteered for the procedure, hoping to improve himself after becoming an aimless drug addict. The Thunderbolts confront the Void, but are quickly overpowered. As the struggle threatens to fully consume Bob, the team intervenes, affirming their belief in him. Their solidarity empowers Bob to regain control, overcoming the Void as light and normality return to the city.

With the threat now past, the Thunderbolts are all set to apprehend de Fontaine. However, she manipulates public perception by staging a press conference in which she introduces them to the public as the 'New Avengers'. The Thunderbolts go along with this, but Yelena threatens de Fontaine if she betrays them again. Remain in your seat for a mid-credits sequence which really is something and nothing, and for the end credits sequence which gives a nod to 'The Fantastic Four : First Steps' the upcoming 37th entry in the MCU and the start of Phase Six, and set for release at the end of July this year.

I was pleasantly surprised by 'Thunderbolts*' with its rag tag bunch of ne'er do wells that are all damaged, traumatised and emotionally scarred in some way that makes them vulnerable and more relatable than some of the other characters we have seen in more recent MCU offerings. It was also somewhat reassuring to see an MCU film grounded in the present day NYC rather than going off on some tangent and taking us deep into the multiverse as has been the want lately, or at least so it seems. Florence Pugh holds the team together and hers is the standout performance in what Director Jake Schreier has pulled together as a coherent, concise and controlled entry into the MCU, while setting up Phase Six of the MCU. The action sequences are well realised and don't overstay their welcome, and there is enough emotional heft and well delivered humour here to make this a well balanced film. 

'Thunderbolts*' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

TOP GUN : MAVERICK - Tuesday 31st May 2022.

I saw the M Rated 'TOP GUN : MAVERICK' earlier this week and it is finally here, after its originally scheduled release date of mid-July 2019 was pushed back to allow for the production team to work on the elaborate action flight sequences, and was reset for late June 2020. It was then moved to Christmas 2020 because of the COVID-19 outbreak and then delayed again to early July 2021 due to scheduling conflicts and the ongoing escalation of the global pandemic. It was further pushed back to a mid-November 2021 release before its final delay to last week for a global release, following its World Premier at CinemaCon in late April and a screening at the Cannes Film Festival earlier in May in an Official Selection Screening, where it received a five-minute standing ovation. This film is the sequel to the 1986 film 'Top Gun' and is Directed by Joseph Kosinski whose previous film making credits are 'Tron : Legacy','Oblivion' and 'Only the Brave' with the upcoming 'Spiderhead' due for a release on Netflix from mid-June. This film cost US$170M to produce, has so far grossed US$391M and has garnered widespread critical acclaim, with many saying that it is better than Tony Scott's original. 

Following on from the events of 'Top Gun' albeit thirty years down the track, Captain Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell (Tom Cruise), has remained a US Navy test pilot in order to deliberately avoid promotion which would see him grounded rather than doing what he loves - flying. Rear Admiral Chester 'Hammer' Cain (Ed Harris) has plans to visit the airbase where Maverick is located to shut down the hypersonic 'Darkstar' scramjet programme and redirect the funds to drone programmes which he sees as the future. Maverick has taken the jet to MACH 9.0 before but needs to prove that it can fly at MACH 10.0 and so takes the prototype to its speed objective before Cain arrives, and ultimately takes it to MACH 10.3 pushing it yet further into the boundaries of its capability, and ends up destroying the prototype and parachuting to safety before the jet crashes down to Earth and erupting in a ball of flame. Cain is poised to ground Maverick for his recklessness, but his friend and former rival Admiral Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky (Val Kilmer), now commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, intervenes and orders Maverick to NAS North Island as a TOPGUN instructor. 

Upon arrival as North Island, Maverick is ordered to train an elite group of pilots assembled by Vice Admiral Beau 'Cyclone' Simpson (Jon Hamm) and Rear Admiral Solomon 'Warlock' Bates (Charles Parnell) to bomb an undisclosed uranium enrichment plant that is seen by the Pentagon as a threat to the USA. The plant sits in a deep gully with steep mountain terrain on all sides and at the end of a winding canyon and is defended by surface-to-air missile batteries and both old and new enemy aircraft. Maverick plans an attack with two pairs of F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jets, which will fly through the canyon and destroy the plant, while also exceeding the Hornet's general flight and operating instruction limits. Maverick is initially rebuffed by the pilots, particularly by Lieutenant Jake 'Hangman' Seresin (Glen Powell) and more so by Lieutenant Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick's former best friend and Radar Intercept Officer Nick 'Goose' Bradshaw, who died so tragically in the first film.

As the pilots train for their mission watched on closely by Cyclone and Warlock, animosity develops between Hangman and Rooster, who resents Hangman's cavalier attitude towards his wingmen, while Hangman criticises Rooster's caution. As the pilots observe and succumb to Maverick's skill as a pilot they reassess and amalgamate around him. Maverick also reunites with former girlfriend Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connolly), who now owns and runs a popular bar on North Island, and who he hasn't seen for the last three years. He admits that partly the reason for Rooster's reluctance to bond with him is because after Rooster's late mother Carolyn made him promise to keep her son from flying, he blocked Rooster's application to the Naval Academy, setting his career back by four years. Maverick later meets with Iceman, who now has throat cancer and communicates by typing. Iceman reassures Maverick about teaching the pilots before passing away days later. Maverick and the pilots attend his funeral with full military honours. 

With Iceman gone, Cyclone removes Maverick as mission trainer and takes over setting new parameters that are less risky on going in but more risky on coming out. However, Maverick makes an unsanctioned flight of the simulated course with the original parameters, proving that it could be done within a two-and-a-half minute timeframe. Cyclone is reluctantly convinced, and appoints Maverick as the strike leader in a F/A-18E Super Hornet.

The day of reckoning arrives, brought forward by one week because the uranium enriching plant was taking receipt of its uranium deposits a week ahead of schedule. Maverick chooses and pairs himself with pilot 'Phoenix' (Monica Barbaro) and her Weapon Systems Officer 'Bob' (Lewis Pullman) in a two-seat F/A-18F Super Hornet, while Rooster is paired with 'Payback' (Jay Ellis) and his Weapon Systems Officer 'Fanboy' (Danny Ramirez). Hangman and the remaining pilots are put on standby. The team launches from an aircraft carrier while a cruiser fires Tomahawk cruise missiles to destroy the landing strip at the air base near the plant. The strike team reaches the plant and destroy it. They are attacked by surface-to-air missiles and a pair of patrolling Su-57 fighters. When Rooster runs out of countermeasures, Maverick sacrifices his jet to protect him and ejects. The remaining aircraft return to the carrier, believing Maverick was killed in action. Against specific orders issued by Cyclone, Rooster turns back and saves Maverick from an Mi-24 helicopter gunship, but is shot down immediately afterwards by another surface-to-air missile and ejects nearby. The two reunite and head towards the destroyed airbase, where they steal an old albeit still working F-14 Tomcat and head back to the carrier. Maverick and Rooster get into a dog-fight with two intercepting Su-57's ultimately shooting them down, but as third arrives and begins to attack they run out of their own missiles, bullets and incoming missile countermeasures. Hangman arrives from standby to shoot down the Su-57, and the planes return to cheers on the carrier, where Maverick thanks Rooster for saving his life, and Rooster says that's what his dad would have done. The pair reconcile their differences.

Following the mission, Maverick and Rooster are seen working together to restore a P-51 Mustang at a hangar close to the test facility where Maverick was previously stationed. Penny arrives with her daughter Amelia (Lyliana Wray), and Maverick takes her for a ride in the P-51.

'Top Gun : Maverick' is a fist thumping, heart pounding, edge of your seat, adrenalin packed thrill ride film that will leave audiences remembering why they go to a movie theatre in the first place - to see big screen blockbuster action spectacle writ large. And this film doesn't disappoint in any of those departments. The aerial flight sequences of which there are plenty, deliver in spades, thanks to Tom Cruise penchant for keeping his practical stunt work real and putting all his other 'pilots' through the same rigorous training regime to deliver the viewer the bona fide in-cockpit experience. The film has fast paced thrilling flying sequences at its core, but it also has emotion, heart, humour and drama that elevates it above the 1986 original, whilst maintaining some of the touchstones from 'Top Gun', including that this is a Don Simpson / Jerry Bruckheimer production, even though the former died twenty-five years ago; the Kenny Loggins 'Danger Zone' plays in the opening sequence aboard the aircraft carrier; Rooster sits down at the piano in Penny's bar and belts out 'Great Balls of Fire' just as his Dad Goose did; and the closing credits make tribute to the memory of Tony Scott, who Directed the original and who died in 2012. All of that said, it is glorious eye candy that still proves that Tom Cruise still has what it takes in the action stakes and continues to raise the bar in all of his own stunt work while bringing an ensemble cast who together are greater than the sum of their parts, and Joseph Kosinski has proven his deft touch at big action spectacle whilst keeping the human element grounded. See this film on the biggest screen you can. 

'Top Gun : Maverick' merits five claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE : Tuesday 23rd October 2018.

'BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE' which I saw on Tuesday evening this week is a late 1960's neo-noir set American thriller that is Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Drew Goddard. He also wrote multiple episodes of popular television series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', 'Angel', 'Alias', 'Lost', created and wrote two episodes of 'Daredevil' and wrote for the big screen too including 'Cloverfield', 'World War Z', 'The Martian', and 'Cabin in the Woods' which was also his Directing debut. After this outing Goddard is Writing and Directing Marvel's 'X-Force'. Costing US$32M to make, the film has so far grossed US$22M since its release in the US and Australia two weeks ago and has received generally positive press, although some are stating that the two hours twenty minutes running time is a little overcooked.

And so the storyline here follows seven strangers who find themselves at the El Royale, a novelty hotel traversing the border of California and Nevada close to Lake Tahoe. As the film opens we are introduced to a man who enters a hotel room at the El Royale in 1960, rather nervously, pulling out a hand gun, peering out of the window before pulling the curtains closed. He then proceeds to move all the furniture, pull up the carpet, pull up the floorboards and deposits a hold-all bag under the floor before replacing the floorboards, replacing the carpet and replacing all the furniture to its original position. He then hears a knock at the door, opens it and is blasted dead with a shotgun. We then fast forward ten years later to 1970, and at the same El Royale Hotel checking in are Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges), singer Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo) and travelling vacuum cleaner salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm). Sometime shortly after, Emily Summerspring (Dakota Johnson) drives erratically up to the front entrance and brings her sports coupe to a grinding halt on the driveway. She saunters out, and also demands a room.

They wait patiently at the Reception ringing the bell awaiting for someone to appear but for ten minutes nobody does. The four exchange social niceties to pass the time of day with Sullivan announcing that the former Rat Pack destinational hotel is now a shadow of its former self as it had lost its gaming licence some years ago, since which time trade has gone rapidly downhill. The hotel's only employee Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman) appears and books them into the rooms, giving them the choice to stay in Nevada or California and officially welcomes them to the El Royale giving them the rules of the house . . . . a routine he would have repeated countless times over the years.

Upon checking into the honeymoon suite, at his very specific request, Sullivan (real name Dwight Broadbeck and in reality an FBI Agent masquerading as a travelling salesman) scans the room for bugs. Upon closer examination of the room he retrieves twenty or so hidden microphones of two different designs hidden in every nook and cranny - in light fittings, power sockets, in the phone, the TV set, the curtain rail and behind picture frames. Having turned the room upside down and exhausted his search he puts a call through to none other than J. Edgar Hoover who tells Broadbeck to remove all evidence of the FBI's operations, for reasons that are unclear.

He goes to the Reception to find it, surprise surprise, unattended. He rings the bell but that goes unanswered. He retrieves the master key to gain access to a locked door in his room, and ventures back of house in search of Miller, whom he finds passed out on bed with a needle hanging from his arm. Broadbeck then decides to investigate back of house and sees a passageway leading down a corridor with one-way mirrors looking into each guest room, and with a film camera set up for the far room at the end of the darkened corridor. Broadbeck spies Father Flynn ripping up the floorboards in his room, Darlene practising her singing into the mirror, and witnesses an apparent kidnapping in Summerspring's room.

Broadbeck puts a call into his office again to be instructed to disregard the alleged kidnapping and to sabotage all the vehicles to prevent the other guests from leaving. In the meantime, Flynn had overheard Darlene's singing from the next room and asks her to join him for dinner. She reluctantly agrees and the pair go to the lounge to retrieve some pie from a vending machine. Listening to music from the juke box, Flynn pours himself a stiff drink and request that Darlene join him for one. She observes Flynn spiking her drink and belts him over the head with a bottle sending him reeling unconscious to the floor. She makes a quick exit out of the hotel into the pouring rain. Miles discovers Flynn on the floor in the bar surrounded by broken glass and a big gash to his forehead. Seeking forgiveness for his sins from the Priest, he leads Father Flynn to the back of house corridor stating that the owners of the hotel who live interstate instruct Miles to film certain guests and send them the footage once every month. Miles has however, chosen to withhold one especially damning film reel of a recently deceased public figure, because the subject person in question was kind to him and if it was to go public would cause a huge scandal.

Acting directly against the orders of his superiors, Broadbeck takes the law into his own hands and after sabotaging the vehicles, bursts in on Emily's room where the alleged kidnapping is unfolding. It is revealed that Emily is in fact holding hostage her own sister Rose (Cailee Spaeny) to protect her from running back to cult leader Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth). Emily opens fire on Broadbeck who is standing directly in front of the rooms mirror, and with a shotgun kills him instantly. Miles who was stood behind that same mirror in the corridor looking in, accidentally gets a face full of buckshot from the same cartridge that killed Broadbeck.

Darlene has meanwhile tried to escape, having witnessed Emily's gunning down of Broadbeck through the opened door, and attempts to start her car but to no avail. Flynn catches up with her and asks to talk. They do so, with Darlene pointing a loaded pistol at Flynn. He comes clean that he is really a criminal named Donald 'Doc' O'Kelly, who was sentenced to ten years jail time after a robbery gone wrong.

Released only days ago on parole, O'Kelly has returned to the El Royale dressed as a Priest to retrieve the bag of swag that his brother Felix had stashed there before being gunned down in a double cross. However, owing to the onset of Alzheimer's, Flynn can't recall which room it was in. The reason he had attempted to drug Darlene was to gain access to her room, deducing that the cash had to be stashed there after he couldn't find it in his own room. Darlene agrees to allow him to search her room in exchange for half the cash.

Having discovered the secret corridor behind the shattered mirror in their room, Emily and Rose interrogate a bloodied Miles with half his face covered in buckshot wounds, about the clandestine surveillance operation. It transpires that Emily had forcibly removed her sister from the clutches of Billy Lee's cult, who by the way whilst being very smooth talking and charismatic was also a sadistic murderer wanted down Florida way for several killings. Rose though loves Billy Lee and has already alerted him to their whereabouts and he is en route. Just as Flynn and Darlene are about to leave with their haul of retrieved cash, Billy Lee arrives with his cultist henchmen and hold them both hostage together now with Emily and Miles too.

While terrorising and interrogating his four captives, Lee discovers the money and the film which he realises pretty quickly is much more valuable than the cash stash. In a sadistic game of roulette, Lee shoots and kills Emily, and threatens to kill Miles, Flynn and Darlene if they do not divulge from whence the money came and Flynn's real identity, sensing that he is not really a Priest. When an overhead lightning strike temporarily cuts the power, Flynn attacks Lee and the hotel lounge catches fire. During the ensuing chaos, Miles reveals that he served as an expert sniper in Vietnam with 123 confirmed skills to his name, but that he can kill no more, being racked with guilt over his killings. At Darlene insistence, given the dire circumstances they find themselves in, he picks up a gun and kills Lee and the other cultists. A distraught Rose stabs Miles in the stomach with a hunting life retrieved from Lee's lifeless body, but is then shot dead by O'Kelly. As Miles lays dying, Darlene urges O'Kelly (returning to Father Flynn mode) to forgive him of his guilt over his actions in Vietnam and at the El Royale over the years, so that he can enter the Kingdom of Heaven at peace at last. O'Kelly and Darlene retrieve the money and throw the canister of film and the hotel register with their names on it into the fire now quickly taking hold in the hotel lobby, before the pair flee, leaving in their wake a trail of death and destruction.

I enjoyed 'Bad Times at the El Royale' despite its elongated running time. Some scenes did labour the point just a little too much, and could easily have been trimmed back by ten or fifteen minutes or so, but that said the film moves along at a good pace, and there is plenty of action and unfolding events to maintain the interest. This film is a solid mash-up of Tarantino and Agatha Christie as it weaves back and forth in time over the course of that one fateful evening and tells the story from each players own point of view to build up the entire picture by the time the credits roll. Stylishly filmed with a faithful recreation of the era and sharp dialogue delivered by a strong ensemble cast who individually all deliver violent outbursts and nail their persona's. Especially noteworthy is Cynthia Erivo in her big screen debut as the soulful singer determined to make it on her own terms in very much a mans world, and Jeff Bridges playing an all too familiar if comfortable role as the weary and gruff ageing linchpin to the night unfolding the way it does. Chris Hemsworth's chiseled physique is also on show for all the world to see, and here he plays largely against type and clearly relishing in it. Certainly worth a look and the price of entry, albeit just a tad overcooked.

'Bad Times at the El Royale' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, out of a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-