‘Thunderbolts*’ is a Solid Return to Form for the MCU
Marvel serves up a "Very Special Episode" of their superhero franchise with the morally ambitious "Thunderbolts*."
All superheroes are not created equal. Some wield the might of titans, defying physics with their fantastic abilities and godlike powers over the elements. Others “just punch and shoot,” as former Black Widow assassin, Yelena Belova, shrewdly observes taking stock of the crew she finds herself assembled with in Marvel’s anti-hero team-up Thunderbolts*.
She’s talking about super-soldiers Red Guardian (David Harbour), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), physical matter phaser Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and fellow assassin Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).
Florence Pugh returns as Yelena, introduced in the 2021 suped-up espionage thriller Black Widow as the younger sister of Scarlett Johansson’s OG Avenger, Natasha Romanoff. In the multiverse-fractured MCU timeline, Black Widow served as a prequel to Avengers: Endgame, in which Natasha perished nobly.
Yelena’s been torn up about her sister’s death ever since. The film opens on her, alone and brooding, at the precipice, a couple thousand feet up, of Malaysia’s Merdeka 118, the world’s second-tallest building.
Off she leaps, the camera absorbing the soulful presence Pugh has brought to this character from her first appearance to her most recent, as foe-turned-friend to Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop on Marvel’s Disney+ series Hawkeye.
The moneyshot of Yelena’s breathtaking jump, potentially stunning, especially on an IMAX screen, barely lasts long enough to justify the hype surrounding Pugh making the (harnessed) leap herself.
But the mood is set for edgy introspection, as the film, directed by Jake Schreier (Robot & Frank), leaps into the abyss with Yelena and all the Thunderbolts, contemplating what separates so-called superheroes from regular do-gooders who just punch and shoot.
More crucially, in this team’s case, they’ll explore what separates the true villains in power from those who merely carry out villains’ evil orders. And it hardly gets more evil, even in an MCU full of supervillains, than the Countess Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, former chairwoman of shadowy holdings company, the OXE Group.
Each member of the Thunderbolts has an ignoble history carrying out orders for Valentina, who, thanks to the absolute relish she takes in being horrible, and the fact she’s played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, stands out as the film’s most fun character. Harbour’s gung-ho Red Guardian, a.k.a. Yelena’s surrogate dad Alexei Shostakov, loaded down with action-movie quips, is also pretty funny, if a bit overbearing.
No one in Thunderbolts*, and few in the MCU, come close to exuding the effortless cool of Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, a real superhero by anyone’s definition. Bucky is also now a freshman congressman representing Brooklyn and serving on a committee — led by Wendell Pierce’s amusing Congressman Gary — conducting impeachment hearings to remove Valentina as CIA Director.
The movie’s humorous portrayal of the political landscape, in a world where the last President blew his top as the Red Hulk, comes laced with a surprising sting. The script, by Black Widow scribe Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, reaches for similar complexity in the well-acted psychological drama that dominates Yelena’s storyline, in particular.
The film’s high-kicking superhero action dominates not nearly enough, but the most engaging sequences generally involve Bob, a mysterious stranger who crosses the Thunderbolts’ path. Also brooding over trauma, and portrayed with affecting emotional intelligence by Lewis Pullman, Bob, like Yelena, contemplates his life’s purpose in the face of a nearly all-powerful, superhuman force.
The filmmakers find an inventive visual language for depicting such a frighteningly formidable foe, capable of utter and instant annihilation. The repetitive bouts of punching and shooting, on the other hand, do not register as inventive, or, at times, even well-choreographed.
Still a solid handoff for the next phase of the MCU, Thunderbolts* better serves the characters fighting their inner demons than fighting CGI battles against green-screen backgrounds.
Thunderbolts* (★★★☆☆) is Rated PG-13 and is playing in theaters nationwide. Visit www.fandango.com.
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