A common gripe about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, post-Endgame, is that it’s been convoluted quantity over streamlined quality.
With their 36th adventure – and Phase Five closer – the MCU may have found a way of keeping the machine rolling smoother for a bit longer. Thunderbolts* shows that there are still compelling and entertaining stories to tell when you don’t bog yourself down with excessive world-building and avoid assigning catch-up homework for your audience before they head into the theatre…
Thunderbolts* begins with Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), who shares that “there’s something wrong with me – an emptiness, a void… Or maybe I’m just bored.”
Regardless of her internal malaise, she’s diving headfirst (literally) into her next mission as a hired mercenary for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the director of the CIA who is facing impeachment and looking to cover her tracks.
One more mission and Yelena is done working in the shadows, something which her scheming boss agrees to. However, Yelena’s last clean-up mission sees her coming face to face with “dime-store Captain America” John Walker / US Agent (Wyatt Russell); the shifting cipher Ava Starr / Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen); the underused Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko); and a mysterious drifter known as Bob (Lewis Pullman).
The disposable delinquents (and Bob, who we find out was the subject of yet another presumed failed super-soldier serum experiment) quickly realise that they’ve been sent to kill each other and are the final phase of Fontaine’s slate-wipe.
After some amusing bickering, they manage to team up and escape their death trap. Joined by Yelena’s father Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian (David Harbour) and newly elected Congressman Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), who is on his own mission to take down Valentina, the ragtag group of anti-heroes need to battle their demons (as well as a larger, morale-sapping one, whose identity shan’t be spoiled) in order to relunctantly fill the Avengers gap left by Marvel’s A-team.
As the MCU’s answer to DC’s Suicide Squad, Thunderbolts* works.
It’s a scrappy, more intimate and – for the most part – more grounded adventure which during its highs reminds fans how much fun it was meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy for the first time.
Director Jake Schreier, whose previous credits include TV series Beef and the criminally underseen drama Robot & Frank, manages to keep the human moments front and centre for this instalment. With a screenplay by The Bear showrunner Joanna Calo and Marvel veteran Eric Pearson, there seems to have been a concerted effort to avoid the usual overstuffing and keep characters as the main draw.
Granted, the standard-issue finale arrives and weakens the very promising spy thriller by leading to another anticlimactic save-the-day final act; but even then, there’s clearly an attempt to make Thunderbolts* something different. Something more intimate. More internal.
The cast rise to the occasion, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus having a great time as the evil doppelganger of her Selina Meyer in Veep; Sebastian Stan has a T-800-style moment to shine; and David Harbour delivers the biggest laughs as the aging Russian super soldier who is fully embracing his unabashed (but slightly damaged) dad era.
Some cast members are underserved by the script, with Hannah John Kamen and Olga Kurylenko not getting much to do, but you can live with that when Florence Pugh is leading the charge.
From The Falling to The Wonder, even including Don’t Worry Darling (a film that contains an even more egregious and annoying title punctuation cock-up with that comma-void between ‘worry’ and ‘darling’), Pugh has shown time and time again that there is no film she can’t elevate through her considerable talents. And Thunderbolts* is no different.
Whether it’s her deflated thoughts while she’s jumping off Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur – the world’s second tallest building, in a Tom Cruise-style stunt she begged Marvel bosses to agree to – or the more intimate moments with Lewis Pullman, Pugh nails every moment. She great when she’s being glib. She’s greater when she’s being sassy. And she gives Thunderbolts*’s (good God, that was a punctuation paella right there) thematic core some weight.
Indeed, the film revolves around unaddressed trauma, loneliness, regret, and learning how to allow yourself to be cared for by others. The mental-health considerations are not always sensitively handled, as one reading of the finale could be that mental instability and bipolar disorder are equated to villainy – especially when the Final Boss is literally Depression: The Villain. However, Pugh gives the beats a degree of emotional tangibility, so much so that the rushed ending gets an out: mental health, like MCU films, can be imperfect. It doesn’t always work out the way we hope, but sometimes the messiness is unavoidable. Maybe even necessary.
Much like accepting the world may not be a brighter place without us, the cinematic landscape wouldn’t necessarily be better without the odd MCU film every now and then.
To say Thunderbolts* is the best MCU offering in a long time isn’t saying all that much at this point. It doesn’t singlehandedly save the MCU but it distances itself enough from the so-called “Infinity Saga” to be rough-around-the-edges fun. It’s a promising sign on the way to this summer’s Fantastic Four: First Steps, especially for all those suffering from superhero fatigue and who can relate all too well to Yelena’s internal funk at the start of Thunderbolts*.
And yes, that clunky asterisk in the title is explained at the end of the film.
Marvel diehards will enjoy the reveal. Others will just shrug and leave their screening with the understanding that for big results, sometimes you have to think back to what made these films good in the first place: charismatic characters with grounded emotions.
That, and always cast Florence Pugh.
Everything will turn out well if you do that.
Let’s hope Marvel have learned a lesson. If so, they may yet prove that Endgame’s title isn’t more prophetic than they originally intended.
Thunderbolts* is out in cinemas now.
