THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS: "THUNDERBOLTS*" (2025)

Thunderbolts—or, as Marvel insists with a typographical smirk, Thunderbolts*—has arrived, trailing its asterisk like a bureaucratic footnote to the MCU’s ever-dwindling glory. One might have hoped this ragtag assembly of second-string superfolk would jolt the franchise out of its post-Endgame torpor, but alas, it’s less a thunderbolt than a damp sparkler, fizzling in the drizzle of diminishing returns.

Directed by Jake Schreier, who once gave us the quirky Robot & Frank, seems contractually obliged here to churn out Marvel’s latest house blend of quips and CGI rubble. The film gathers a motley crew of antiheroes—think Suicide Squad, but with more existential moping and fewer exploding heads. Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, the Black Widow’s gloomier sibling, leads the pack with a performance that’s equal parts magnetic and miserable, as if she’s just realized she’s signed up for three more of these. She’s joined by Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, a super-soldier-turned-congressman (a career pivot that’s never explained, nor particularly funny), and David Harbour’s Red Guardian, a Russian lummox whose boisterous shtick feels like a vodka-soaked audition for a sitcom that never got greenlit. Wyatt Russell’s John Walker, Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost, and Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster round out the roster, each bringing their own flavour of trauma to the table, like a therapy group that accidentally wandered into a Michael Bay film.

The plot, such as it is, involves these misfits being duped into a death trap by Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, a CIA director with the moral compass of a reality TV producer. There’s something about a superhuman project called “Sentry,” a shadowy villain called “the Void,” and a lot of running around New York while buildings explode in that curiously bloodless way Marvel favours. It’s all terribly formulaic, as if the script—penned by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo—were generated by an AI trained on every team-up movie since The Avengers. The film’s much-vaunted focus on mental health, with characters navel-gazing about their childhood traumas, feels less like a bold thematic choice and more like a box to tick on the studio’s diversity-of-emotions checklist. “I’m just drifting,” Yelena laments, and one can’t help but nod in agreement, as the film itself drifts from one action set-piece to the next, each less memorable than the last.

Visually, Thunderbolts is as drab as a Soviet apartment block, with cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo—whose work on The Green Knight promised so much more—seemingly instructed to desaturate everything until it resembles a particularly grim Instagram filter. The action sequences, while competently staged, lack the verve to stand out in a genre that’s been flogging the same slow-motion bullet dodges for two decades. There’s a surreal climax that nods to Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich, which is at least a novelty, but it’s too little, too late, like finding a single truffle in a vat of processed cheese.

And yet, one must grudgingly admit, it’s not entirely awful. Pugh, lovely as she is bless her, carries the film with a sardonic charisma that almost makes you forget the script’s shortcomings. Harbour’s Red Guardian provides a few chuckles, particularly when he’s tossing Molotov cocktails from a limo like a caterer gone rogue. The asterisk in the title, revealed to be a coy wink at the team’s rebranding as “The New Avengers,” is a rare moment of self-awareness, though it mostly serves to remind us that Marvel’s best days were when the old Avengers were still around.

In the end, Thunderbolts is neither the franchise’s salvation nor its nadir—just another cog in the MCU’s relentless content machine, grinding on with the weary inevitability of a tax return. It’s watchable, in the way that a mildly diverting airport novel is readable, but it leaves you longing for the days when Marvel films felt like events rather than obligations. As Yelena might put it, staring into the void of her own ennui: “What’s the point?”.

VE80: FROM FEARLESS HEROES, TO FECKLESS LEADERS

In the fullness of time, which is to say the relentless churn of years that grinds even the mightiest to dust, we will lose the last of the VE-Day generation. Those stooped, medal-laden figures, their eyes still bright with the memory of a world saved, will shuffle off this mortal coil, leaving us to fumble with their legacy like children entrusted with a Fabergé egg. They stormed the beaches of Normandy, these men of the 50th Division, 25,000 strong, wading through surf and shrapnel to claw liberty from the jaws of tyranny. 

They were not superheroes, though their deeds read like the stuff of myth. They were ordinary lads—bakers, clerks, farmhands—who did extraordinary things because history demanded it. And now, as their numbers dwindle to a whisper, we mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day with a mixture of reverence and shame, for we have squandered their gift in ways that would make them weep.

The shame is ours, but the blame, dear reader, must be laid at the feet of our current Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, a man so devoid of historical imagination he might as well be governing from a spreadsheet. Starmer, with his lawyerly precision and charisma of a damp flannel, presides over a Britain that seems to have forgotten the meaning of sacrifice. 

His is a managerial reign, a beige dystopia where the grand sweep of history is reduced to a series of policy briefs and diversity quotas. One can almost picture him, in some Whitehall bunker, furrowing his brow over the latest migration figures, wondering how to spin the arrival of 10,000 undocumented young men—hale, hearty, and of fighting age—on England’s southern shores in the first five months of 2025 alone. Bed, board, and free gym memberships for all, courtesy of the taxpayer! 

Try explaining that to the ghosts of Gold Beach, who fought not for handouts but for a nation worth defending. The contrast is grotesque. Those VE-Day lads, barely out of their teens, faced machine-gun nests and barbed wire, their only reward the chance to live another day. They did not ask for much—just a country that would remember them, that would honour their blood and sweat by building something enduring. 

Instead, we offer them Starmer’s Britain, a land where the Home Office, under the steely gaze of Yvette Cooper, proposes visa crackdowns on migrants from Pakistan and Nigeria while simultaneously rolling out the red carpet for others, no questions asked. The asylum hotel bill, a cool £2 billion a year, is to be trimmed by a few hundred million, we’re told, as if fiscal prudence can mask moral bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the veterans, those who still draw breath, are left to navigate a healthcare system that treats them as an afterthought, their stories relegated to sepia-toned documentaries aired at inconvenient hours on BBC Four.

Let us pause to consider the absurdity. In the name of compassion, we fling open our borders to those who arrive with no papers, no history, no allegiance—only demands. The Home Office, that great engine of bureaucratic inertia, seems less concerned with vetting than with ensuring no one is offended in the process. Meanwhile, the memory of our VE-Day heroes is treated as a quaint relic, trotted out for anniversaries and then shelved until the next round of wreath-laying. 

Allison Pearson, in her original cri de cœur, rightly asked how we went from Churchill to Starmer, from a titan to a nonentity. The answer is simple: we stopped believing in ourselves. Churchill, for all his flaws, understood that a nation is its people, its history, its shared resolve. Starmer, by contrast, seems to view Britain as a giant NGO, its purpose to absorb the world’s woes without complaint.

The VE-Day generation did not fight for this. They did not endure the unendurable so that their descendants could watch their country become a waystation for the rootless, its identity diluted to a bland multicultural broth. They fought for a Britain that knew what it was—a stubborn, idiosyncratic island that could stand alone if need be. Yet here we are, 80 years on, with Reform UK’s lonely crusade to ban “woke” flags from council buildings, as if a return to the Union Jack and St George’s Cross could stitch up the wounds of a nation unmoored. Even that modest proposal divides opinion, with Telegraph readers debating whether the Armed Forces flag is a worthy sacrifice for clarity. Clarity! As if we could find such a thing in Starmer’s Britain, where every policy is a hedge, every principle negotiable.

The tragedy is not just the loss of the veterans, though that is sorrow enough. It is the loss of what they stood for: a sense of duty, of pride, of something greater than the self. In their place, we have a government that prioritizes the optics of inclusivity over the substance of sovereignty. Starmer’s disdain for the past is not overt—he’s too cautious for that—but it seeps through in his every action. Why honour the dead when you can court the living, especially those who arrive in dinghies, their votes a distant but tantalizing prospect? The veterans, with their inconvenient tales of valour, are an embarrassment to a regime that prefers to look forward, never back.

And so, as we mark VE Day, let us mourn not just the men we lose but the Britain they knew. Let us mourn the certainty they fought for, the clarity they died for. Let us mourn, too, the fact that their sacrifice is now a footnote in a nation obsessed with its own reinvention. The VE-Day generation deserved better than to be patronized by a Prime Minister who cannot fathom their greatness. They deserved a country that would hold fast to their values, not one that trades them for a mess of pottage—or, worse, a gym membership. As the last of them fade, we are left with a question they would never have thought to ask: what was it all for? In Starmer’s Britain, the answer is as elusive as honour itself.

THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS: "DOCTOR WHO - "LUCKY DAY" (S2 Ep4)

In the ever-spinning vortex of Doctor Who, last night’s episode, Lucky Day (May 3, 2025), lands like a rogue signal in a digital storm—sharp, timely, and crackling with intent, yet occasionally muddled by its own ambitions. This Doctor-lite romp, set in the gritty now of 2025 Earth, pivots on Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday, whose return is a masterclass in emotional heft. It’s a tale of betrayal and conspiracy, with a villain so punchably vile you’ll cheer his comeuppance, though it stumbles in its heavy-handed Think Tank focus group and yet another straight white male baddie. Like a TARDIS stuck in a paradox, Lucky Day dazzles with its heart but wobbles in its aim.

The visuals are a standout, grounding the episode in a hyper-modern media landscape that feels unnervingly real. From Conrad’s slick podcast studio to UNIT’s gleaming tower, the aesthetic is all sharp angles and cold screens, a satire of our scroll-addicted age. Cameos from Joel Dommett and Alex Jones, alongside the return of fictional anchor Trinity Wells, add a biting edge, as if the BBC itself is winking at its own omnipresence. The Shreek, a goo-dripping alien designed by a Blue Peter winner, is a creepy delight, its green slime a vivid counterpoint to the episode’s tech-heavy sheen. Director Peter Hoar crafts a tense, cinematic ride, with a pub scene gliding to reveal Conrad’s fate—a moment that chills without a single word.

Millie Gibson is the episode’s soul, delivering a performance that’s raw, layered, and utterly gripping. As Ruby, now grappling with life post-TARDIS, she channels a companion’s trauma with heartbreaking precision—her eyes carry the weight of Daleks dodged and goblins faced, yet she’s still vulnerable enough to fall for a charmer’s lies. Her climactic “go to hell” to Conrad is a gut-punch, a moment where Gibson’s fury and fragility collide to devastating effect. Whether navigating UNIT’s chaos or confronting betrayal, she’s a force, her Northern humor and quiet strength making Ruby a companion who feels lived-in and real. Her pinstripe-clad look, evoking David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, is a subtle nod that Gibson wears with swagger, proving she’s more than ready to carry an episode.

Jonah Hauer-King’s Conrad Clark is the villain you love to loathe, his punchable evilness a masterstroke of casting. As a podcaster turned conspiracy kingpin, he’s all smarm and self-righteous rage, a grifter whose charm curdles into menace with every smirk. His refusal to believe in aliens, even as a Shreek snarls in his face, is both absurd and terrifyingly believable, a nod to real-world denialists who’d rather die than doubt. The final scene between Conrad and the Doctor is a triumph, Ncuti Gatwa’s Time Lord delivering a chilling monologue that’s less sermon than execution. His cold prophecy of Conrad’s fate—“I know exactly when and how you’ll die”—is Gatwa at his fiercest, a moment that cuts deeper than any laser. It’s a confrontation that elevates the episode, grounding its themes in raw, personal stakes.

Yet, Lucky Day falters in its handling of the Think Tank focus group, a plot device that feels like a sledgehammer where a scalpel was needed. This shadowy collective, peddling anti-UNIT conspiracies, aims to skewer online radicalization but lands as a caricature, too broad to truly unsettle. The group’s livestreamed stunts and doxxing of UNIT staff are timely but lack nuance, echoing the heavy-handedness of past Davies missteps like Orphan 55. Worse, the choice of Conrad as yet another straight white male villain feels like a tired trope. While Hauer-King’s performance is undeniable, the archetype—another privileged dude weaponizing charisma for chaos—feels like low-hanging fruit in a show that’s tackled far more complex evils. It’s a critique echoed in reviews noting the episode’s failure to fully explore Conrad’s motivations, leaving him a composite of grifter, incel, and reactionary without a clear arc.

Still, Lucky Day is a bold swing, its flaws outweighed by its emotional core. Gibson’s powerhouse turn, Hauer-King’s odious villainy, and that searing final showdown make it a memorable chapter, even if its conspiracy thread feels more like a Reddit rant than a revelation. With Mrs. Flood’s cryptic jailbreak of Conrad hinting at bigger schemes, the episode plants seeds for a season that’s clearly building to something grand. It’s Doctor Who at its most human—messy, heartfelt, and defiantly alive.

Ten Interesting Things from "Lucky Day":

• Gibson’s Grit: Millie Gibson’s Ruby is a revelation, her raw pain and fiery “go to hell” making her a standout in this Doctor-lite tale.

• Conrad’s Creep: Jonah Hauer-King’s Conrad is deliciously detestable, his smug denial of a snarling Shreek chillingly real.

• Doctor’s Fury: The final Conrad-Doctor clash, with Gatwa’s icy prophecy, is a highlight, showcasing a fiercer Time Lord.

• Shreek’s Slime: The Blue Peter-designed Shreek, with its gooey menace, adds a creepy edge to the conspiracy chaos.

• UNIT’s Edge: Kate Stewart’s brutal choice to unleash the Shreek on Conrad shows a darker, compelling side.

• Media Satire: Cameos from Joel Dommett and Alex Jones, plus Trinity Wells, ground the episode in sharp, modern commentary.

• Pinstripe Nod: Ruby’s David Tennant-inspired outfit is a cheeky costume callback, worn with swagger by Gibson.

• Mrs. Flood’s Move: Anita Dobson’s mysterious jailbreak of Conrad teases a villainous arc that’s yet to unfold.

• Pub Scene Chill: A gliding camera shot revealing Conrad’s fate in a pub is a directorial gem, silent but sinister.

• PTSD Thread: Ruby’s subtle PTSD from her TARDIS days adds depth, making her vulnerability resonate.