At the beginning of the new Marvel adventure Thunderbolts*, brainwashed-assassin-turned-freelance-assassin Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) has slipped into a bit of a funk. In fact, she’s ready to put the black ops life behind her, she tells CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who’s been overseeing Yelena’s murder operations. Instead, Yelena may be ready to explore the hero lifestyle, if only because it seems more fulfilling than her current cycle of drinking and killing.
Unfortunately, Yelena doesn’t get the chance, because Valentina’s under Congressional investigation for the CIA’s more clandestine affairs, and is thus cleaning up all of the incriminating evidence. This leads to Yelena getting caught in a literal death trap with Valentina’s other high-level operatives — John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen) — with a choice: Survive together, or die alone.
Along with Yelena’s adoptive father/former Russian superhero Alexei/Red Guardian (David Harbour) and former assassin/current Congressman (!) Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), they’re an unlikely team for sure, but they may be the only people who can help each other, as well as figure out what’s going on the mysterious Bob (Lewis Pullman), a seeming innocent also caught up in this mess.
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All of the above feels like a lot, and that’s because Thunderbolts* tries to do a lot over its two hour and six minute runtime, drawing together an assortment of MCU deep cuts for what might be considered Marvel’s equivalent to The Suicide Squad. Like Suicide Squad, the emphasis is on arguably bad people learning to do good, creating a found family dynamic that brings out the humanity in its characters.
In many ways, Thunderbolts* feels like a breath of fresh air and a notable step forward for the MCU as a whole, which is pretty remarkable given that this is a cast of characters where the literal point is that they’re the scraps left over from past Marvel adventures — loose ends left adrift. The movie’s two credited writers are established MCU scripter Eric Pearson (Black Widow, Thor: Ragnarok) and Joanna Calo, whose TV accomplishments include writing for Bojack Horseman and, y’know, co-showrunning FX’s The Bear. Together with director Jake Schreier, they create surprising, often fun dynamics between these oddballs, finding amusing and relatable angles to all of these characters.
The only downside to this approach is that due to time and space constraints, the movie does rush through the bulk of their backstories in a way that leaves them a bit lacking in context — Hannah John-Kamen’s Ava feels particularly under-served, though everyone suffers a bit from how much has been crammed in. As Consequence recently documented, there’s over 37 hours worth of backstory, and there are a lot of assumptions being made about the audience’s ability to remember how some of these folks might be connected.
Thunderbolts Review Marvel
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Thunderbolts* (Disney)
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Thunderbolts* (Disney)
Still, whether or not your memory of the ending of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is crystal clear, there’s a lot to enjoy if you choose to sit back and enjoy the ride. There’s a lightness throughout the movie that feels like a balm after the extremely serious tone of recent MCU projects like Daredevil: Born Again and Captain America: Brave New World, and Schreier keeps the action clean and easy to follow. This proves important during sequences like the first real confrontation between our misfit toys — a four-way melee packed with flying bullets, shields, and knives.
While this is an ensemble, Florence Pugh is without question its leader, and she nails the difficult task of making her anti-hero assassin both the emotional and moral center of the film. This emerges largely in the bonds Yelena creates with others, from her tricky link with Alexei to quietly bonding with Ava while mocking Walker to her immediate connection with Bob. (Pugh and Lewis Pullman have remarkable chemistry right off the bat — hopefully something Marvel manages to pay forward down the line.)
As mentioned, Ava’s probably the least-developed character of Thunderbolts*, though Sebastian Stan takes a long time to get off the sidelines, possibly because of this nonsensical Congressional turn he’s taken. It’s not too hard to get one’s head around the idea of a 100-plus-year-old one-time Russian super-spy getting elected as a Congressman when you consider that this is an America which has been through a few alien invasions, not to mention that whole thing where half the population magically disappeared. Bucky’s constituents are probably just grateful they didn’t accidentally elect a Hulk. But still, it’s hard to understand where this plot development — first shoved into this spring’s Brave New World, then awkwardly continued here — came from, or what impact it might have on the future.
As for the rest of the cast, David Harbour brings such vibrant “happy to be here!” energy that it proves downright infectious, while Julia Louis-Dreyfus is so good as a comic book villain that it makes me personally furious that she hasn’t gotten to play one before. Unlike other Marvel baddies, Valentina’s driven by a degree of self-interest that makes her almost relatable — and certainly more intriguing than your usual super-powered foe trying to take over the world. Valentina might also be interested in world conquest, but she’s got a much smarter way to go about it.
Thunderbolts Review Marvel
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Thunderbolts* (Disney)
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Thunderbolts* (Disney)
On a franchise level, while Captain America: Brave New World felt stagnant and constrained by the puzzle pieces it was trying to assemble, Thunderbolts* has a loose, organic spirit. There’s a meta quality, really, to the state of the world depicted here, a society that hasn’t really found a way to move on from the absence of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, destabilized by the absence of Earth’s mightiest heroes. It’s the same void the MCU faces at this moment, as the previously planned Kang-based narrative pivots towards a new Robert Downey Jr.-shaped future. Even a seven-hour chair stunt can only restore so much excitement about another Marvel tale.
There may be a lot riding on this summer’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, with the pressure on to integrate Marvel’s First Family into this ever-expanding universe in a way that keeps building up the hype. Yet that movie has one major advantage going for it, which is the genuine momentum born from the final post-credits scene of Thunderbolts*. Not just because of what it teases for the future, but because the emphasis on unique, likable characters here is an important reminder of what actually works about these movies.
The Avengers didn’t make over a billion dollars in 2012 because it was about superheroes, but because it ended with a scene of exhausted superheroes eating schwarma. These are the moments where Marvel really shines — the moments that executive producer Kevin Feige compares to the campfire scene from Star Trek V, the grounded and relatable sparks of life in the midst of these wild plots.
A good third of Thunderbolts* has that vibe — yes, there becomes at one point a pressing need to save the world, but the action remains focused entirely on this ensemble and their emotional journeys (in a quite literal way). The world always needs heroes. But when Marvel’s at its best, it’s reminding us that anyone can be one. Anyone.
Thunderbolts* blasts into theaters on Friday, May 2nd. Check out the trailer below.
