Thunderbolts* and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Directed by Jake Schreier
I’ll say this about the Marvel movies. The Superhero Fatigue that everyone brings up is definitely overblown, but there is something a little soulless about the assembly line nature of their productions, and if Phase 5 can be said to have any significant flaw, it really took the shine off of the artistic side of things, as no one seems to have been benefitting from their involvement in them. Perhaps this is why Sinners, which I will be reviewing very soon, has been such a breath of fresh air for critics and audiences alike who are looking for something beyond the movie itself to root for; a story to tell that isn’t just a giant corporation hiring good artists to make perfectly fine products over and over again. Still, it’s hard to argue that the system hasn’t been working just fine for Marvel, and while I don’t know who Jake Schreier is beyond the solid reputation of Robot & Frank, I’m always interested to see what a filmmaker like this can do on the Mouse House’s dime. Is this another great entry in the MCU’s already impressive catalog, or are they desperately scrapping the bottom of the barrel to keep this machine going? Let’s find out!!
It seems that Disney is not the only one who misses the halcyon days of the original Avengers as everyone in the MCU is desperately trying to make that lightning strike twice; none more so than Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) whose company OXE Group has been putting superhero rejects on their payroll and performing secret experiments too horrific to describe. With congress on her heels, no doubt encouraged by the junior congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Valentina needs to wipe the slate clean by destroying all evidence and any witnesses to her crimes which include Black Widow’s sister Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), US Agent John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen); all of whom have done wet work for her and are eminently disposable in her eyes. Things don’t go as planned, however, as these castoffs find just enough common ground to try and work together to stop Valentina and whatever sinister plot she has up her sleeves. What secrets is she so desperate to hide, and do they involve a mysterious guy named Bob (Lewis Pullman), whose presence is a mystery even to himself? What convinced these B-list superheroes to work for such an obvious jerk anyway, and could Yelena’s father The Red Guardian (David Harbour) show them the proper path to being true heroes? Is the whole Losers as Superheroes trope a bit played out at this point, or is it just a sign of the times that our generation relate to losers more than anyone else?
It’s a shame that Marvel continues to be so good at this, because once again I find it difficult to write a review about how much I enjoyed the movie without simply stating the patently obvious. The movie is a well-made action film with colorful characters portrayed by good actors whose individual foibles and charming personality lend more credibility and weight to the superhero punch-ups throughout. The continuity between movies serves this film better than most, at least, as none of the characters are so important as to require a backstory to understand their deal, yet it feels much more significant here that so many characters from the smaller corners of the universe are coming together. I never expected Ghost to make another appearance in the MCU despite being one of my favorite villains in one of the more fun movies in the franchise, so seeing her turn up here and being part of a team means more to me than the marquee crossovers in the Avengers movies. It’s laughable to even think of a two hundred million dollar movie as scrappy, but without the bigger stars on hand, it almost harkens back to the days of the original Guardian of the Galaxy where the characters were still actively earning their place in the pantheon of heroes, and it felt like the film itself had something to prove. What also separates this from the pack is that it manages to have villains who actually work as characters in their own right and as terrifying threats to the world, when usually we can only pull off one or the other. It helps that Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the mystery villain work off of each other so well to create a very toxic yet believable dynamic that tackles mental health in an interesting way; both in terms of how such issues can manifest when you throw superpowers into the mix, and how the film chooses to depict the struggle in a way that is as compelling, if not more so, than your standard action set piece. The conclusion to both of their arcs are bittersweet in a way that resonates more than if the film had tied everything up in a neat bow, and works better for the incomplete and stumbling nature of the Thunderbolts themselves and makes this one of the most vitally needed breaths of fresh air in the franchise’s nearly twenty-year history.
That said, I think the film doth protest too much with its insistence on being about a bunch of losers. Despite the film constant drumbeat about leaning into their knock-off Avengers brand, there’s still a sense of insecurity behind its bluster, which is where the movie stumbles a bit. I suppose this brings us up to the precipice of spoilers, so jump off now if you’re anxious about that, but the most surprising thing about this movie is how little of it feels like the movie it’s been selling itself as in the trailers because the film is hardly about our main cast of reject heroes. Oh sure, the Thunderbolts of the title are certainly there and have a decent amount of screen-time, but the story is not about them in the same way that James Bond movies are rarely about the character himself. I appreciate the streamlined approach here as it’s the main reason why the villains enough room to breathe and have some amount of emotional resonance, but there are a couple of babies that got thrown out with the bathwater, and they are the Thunderbolts themselves who are just kind of there to fill out there cast and feel somewhat interchangeable had Disney decided to go with, say, the Netflix cast instead and call this the Defenders movie. The only exceptions are Florence Pugh as Yelena and David Harbour as Red Guardian as they’re the two members of the team who feel in any way connected to the thematic thrust of the villain’s plans and Pugh in particular steals the movie through her heartfelt performance that carries the movie through its more disposable moments. Still, while I didn’t need each and every person on this crew to have oceans of depth for me to enjoy seeing them onscreen, it would have been nice if we got a better idea of how things had been going since we last saw them.
There’s a faint whiff of inauthenticity with the MCU trying to sell us an underdog story, especially with this contentedly swimming in the wake of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, but there’s no denying the fun to be had with this movie and seeing some of its more niche character get a shot at the spotlight. It’s not the kind of movie that will convince anyone who’s already done with the MCU to jump back onboard, but it is enough of a unique animal to remind fans why this whole thing got so big in the first place. Even a decade ago, no one would have believed that we’d get to the point where US Agent and Task Master are opening a two hundred million dollar blockbuster, and I think that alone is worth acknowledging as a positive development for the genre as it can still surprise you from time to time.
The Reviewers Unite 