Thunderbolts* is being called Marvel's best film in years — are people genuinely impressed, or have our expectations just cratered so badly that 'decent' now feels like a masterpiece?

• ML

  Marco L.1d ago

  I dragged my husband to see it fully expecting to spend two hours on my phone. Neither of us touched our phones once. That's my metric at this point.

  203Reply
• O

  Omar8h ago

  I hate how much I liked it. I had a whole speech prepared for my friends about how I was done with Marvel. Now I have to walk it back and they will never let me forget.

  196Reply
• D2

  Drew 212d ago

  Thunderbolts* was genuinely good. Like, I walked out actually caring about the characters. That hasn't happened in a Marvel movie since Endgame for me. Let people enjoy things without the meta-commentary about whether they're 'allowed' to like it.

  187Reply
• JL

  Jamie L.7h ago

  the discourse around this movie is so exhausting. some people just want to like stuff. the culture of having to justify your enjoyment or qualify it with 'well my expectations were low so...' is killing the fun of being a fan of anything

  177Reply
• LM

  Liam M.11h ago

  I think what people are responding to is that Thunderbolts* actually has a THEME. Like it's about something. Shame, failure, feeling like a mistake. The MCU completely forgot how to have thematic coherence for about four years and this movie remembered.

  174Reply
• Q

  Quinn2h ago

  gonna be real i cried twice and i'm a 38 year old man who regularly makes fun of people who cry at marvel movies. the movie just GOT to me. whatever that means for the discourse i don't care

  168Reply
• J

  Jamie17h ago

  I stopped watching after Eternals. Watched Thunderbolts* on a whim because a coworker wouldn't stop talking about it. It was legitimately the most I've had fun at a superhero movie in years. Maybe I needed the break. Maybe the movie is just good. Probably both.

  162Reply
• RL

  Ravi L.1d ago

  Went in with zero hype because I've been burned too many times. Came out texting my sister about how much I loved Yelena. Florence Pugh is carrying this franchise on her back and I will not hear otherwise.

  156Reply
• H

  Hana3h ago

  The mid-credits scene is what has me actually excited for the first time in years. I won't say more. But I stood up.

  154Reply
• JM

  Jamie M.4h ago

  Took my dad who hasn't seen a Marvel movie since the original Iron Man. He followed everything, laughed at the right moments, got emotional once. If a complete outsider has that experience then the film is doing something right on its own merits not just for the fans.

  148Reply
• DR

  Diego R.1d ago

  Hot take: the fact that people are debating whether they're 'allowed' to praise it is more damaging to Marvel than any bad movie. This discourse IS the fatigue.

  145Reply
• I

  Iris5h ago

  Even if 100% of the goodwill is from lowered expectations — so what? The experience of sitting in that theater and genuinely enjoying a movie is real. You can't retrospectively steal that from people by being philosophically correct about context.

  143Reply
• I

  Iris1d ago

  this is literally the discourse every single time marvel releases anything now. if people love it its 'lowered expectations' if people hate it its 'marvel fatigue.' can we just watch the movie

  134Reply
• Z

  Zara4h ago

  Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Just on cast alone this movie deserved to work. Sometimes assembling real actors instead of relying on spectacle is what the formula was missing.

  132Reply
• D

  Drew9h ago

  This movie is a 7 out of 10. A very solid 7. In a normal franchise that's a decent entry and nothing more. Because the MCU has been serving 4s and 5s, a 7 feels like a revelation. That's the honest read here.

  121Reply
• NS

  Nina S.21h ago

  Bucky Barnes has been underused for YEARS and this movie finally gave him something real to do. I've been waiting a literal decade for that. Of course it feels great to me. Does that mean my reaction is invalid?

  119Reply
• R

  Ravi1d ago

  actually wrong take. Guardians 3 was legitimately great filmmaking with real emotional depth. people forget it immediately because the wider MCU discourse is so exhausting but that movie deserved more credit

  111Reply
• D

  Diego2h ago

  Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been the best thing the MCU has introduced in Phase 5 by a country mile and I will die on this hill

  109Reply
• P

  Priya3h ago

  yes the cgi wasnt perfect but also superhero films have been held to this impossible visual effects standard since the avengers and the vfx workers are burned out and underpaid. maybe calibrate your expectations for human labor not just the movies

  103Reply
• E

  Elena11h ago

  Box office has never been a measure of quality and you know it. The Transformers franchise has made billions.

  97Reply
• TL

  Taylor L.4h ago

  The fact that this debate even exists shows how damaged the brand is. Nobody asks 'are you just relieved it was good?' about a Christopher Nolan movie. That question only makes sense when trust has been serially broken.

  95Reply
• RL

  Ravi L.1d ago

  I think the question is actually worth taking seriously. Our brains do recalibrate. If you eat bad food for a year and then have a decent meal it tastes incredible. That doesn't mean it's a Michelin star restaurant. Thunderbolts* is fine. Fine is not a triumph.

  92Reply
• F9

  Feli 9210h ago

  The mental health themes were handled with more care than I expected from a superhero blockbuster I'll give it that. Genuinely surprised.

  89Reply
• NB

  Noah B.1d ago

  my 12 year old has been obsessed with comics for years and she loved it. not everything has to be prestige cinema analysis from 35-year-olds on reddit

  88Reply
• DR

  Drew R.8h ago

  A 7 that makes you feel something is worth more than a technically perfect 8 that leaves you cold. Film isn't a spreadsheet.

  86Reply
• KR

  Kofi R.5h ago

  Both things can be true. Thunderbolts* is genuinely one of the better MCU films AND your enjoyment is inflated by years of disappointment. Holding both ideas at once isn't cynicism, it's just being honest about how human psychology works. The movie is good. The hype is a little too good.

  84Reply
• N2

  Nina 211d ago

  The MCU hasn't made a legitimately great film since No Way Home and even that was 70% nostalgia delivery mechanism. Thunderbolts being 'good' in this context is like being the tallest person at a middle school.

  78Reply
• K

  Kofi20h ago

  lowered expectations is absolutely a real phenomenon in pop culture criticism and nobody wants to acknowledge it because it feels like you're invalidating people's enjoyment. but you can enjoy something AND recognize you might be grading on a curve

  76Reply
• NT

  Noah T.6h ago

  The original question is doing something smart: it's separating 'I enjoyed this experience' from 'this is objectively good filmmaking.' Those are different things and conflating them is how franchises keep audiences on a treadmill of managed disappointment.

  72Reply
• IT

  Iris T.8h ago

  can we please talk about how good the score was?? nobody is mentioning the score and it was doing so much heavy lifting emotionally throughout

  71Reply
• H

  Hana1d ago

  The third act is where it lost me. I won't spoil it but the villain resolution felt like they wrote themselves into a corner and just picked the first exit they found. Classic MCU Phase 5 problem — great setup, fumbled landing.

  67Reply
• HK

  Hana K.5h ago

  I actually think the opposite problem is real — there's a crowd that NEEDS to love it to feel vindicated in still being MCU fans, and that pressure distorts their reaction as much as cynicism distorts the haters'. Both groups should touch grass.

  64Reply
• R

  Riley6h ago

  The CGI in the third act looked unfinished to me. I know that sounds nitpicky but it's a $200 million movie. There were shots that looked worse than some television I've watched. That's a real problem regardless of how good the story beats are.

  58Reply
• J

  Jordan23h ago

  The question of calibration is genuinely interesting and not dismissive of people who liked it. Our standards for what counts as 'good storytelling' in superhero films have been actively eroded by corporate content churn for years. Acknowledging that isn't snobbishness.

  54Reply
• I

  Iris14h ago

  It made $162 million opening weekend globally so the 'Marvel is dead' crowd can sit down. People vote with their wallets and they voted pretty clearly here.

  43Reply

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