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?
The Reviewers Unite 