PLOT: After being betrayed by their boss, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Yelena (Florence Pugh), U.S Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and Red Guardian (David Harbour), with some help from Bucky (Sebastian Stan) team up to take on a new threat.
REVIEW: The big marketing gimmick behind Thunderbolts has been that this is unique as far as Marvel movies go. Sporting a (presumably) thriftier budget than usual, and dialling the pyrotechnics and heroics way down, this seems to be an attempt to make a smaller, contained kind of Marvel movie which doesn’t need to make $800 million to be considered a success. Whether or not audiences, who have become accustomed to the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach, will go for this new vibe is a different question, but kudos to the studio for at least trying something a little different.
Indeed, this is a smaller Marvel movie than expected, with it more like the first wave of MCU movies we received in the wake of the original Iron Man. It spends a lot of time on characterization, and doesn’t even really have a traditional villain, with it taking a surprisingly cerebral turn in the movie’s climax, which I found pretty refreshing. Yet, as different as these parts of the movie are, and as pleasantly as they surprised me, you still have to plow through a lot of typical exposition which ties the film into the greater franchise as a whole. In fact, with virtually the entire cast already announced for Avengers: Doomsday, this feels like a bit of a prelude to bigger things, and less a movie that succeeds by its own merits. So basically, it feeling like an old-school Marvel movie is both a blessing and a curse, and it’s not as over the top as more recent movies, but, like Iron Man 2, Thor, and a few of the other OG movies, it feels like just a big tease for bigger things to come.
Even still, Thunderbolts gets a lot of mileage out of the cast, led by Florence Pugh as the increasingly fed-up Yelena, grieving her sister’s death, and looking for a bigger purpose in life beyond being a mercenary. She’s also haunted by past misdeeds, which makes her fit right into this crew of anti-heroes. While Sebastian Stan’s return as Winter Soldier is being hyped, and he certainly is cool when he re-enters the fray, Wyatt Russell as the disgraced U.S. Agent makes an even bigger impression, with him initially standoff-ish with the rest of the team, before the extent of his own disgrace is revealed. His redemption arc is one of the better aspects of the movie, with him, Pugh, and Lewis Pullman as Bob, a hapless but dangerous victim of Valentina’s experiments, the movie’s heart.
By contrast, David Harbour’s return as Red Guardian is largely played for laughs, which is needed as much of the movie is about processing trauma. The simplicity of his character gives the movie a bit of needed levity. Of the crew, Hanna John Kamen’s Ghost gets relatively little to do, although she makes a welcome return, while Olga Kurylenko barely registers as Taskmaster, having little more than a walk-on.
While the trailers make Thunderbolts seem action-packed, I was surprised at how modest the carnage is this time, with the IMAX-enhanced action scenes not much more dynamic than anything you’d see on Disney Plus. Director Jake Schreier, who comes from the indie world, gives the movie a bit of quirkiness (at least as much as Marvel will allow), even having a score by Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Son Lux. However, the promos saying this would be like an A24-style Marvel pic are a bit laughable, as even if they mix up the formula A BIT, it’s still a Marvel movie through and through, not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you.
Overall, Thunderbolts is a significant step-up from the disappointing Captain America: Brave New World, although it’s not the game-changer some of the breathless early junket reviews suggest. With Marvel movies, the first wave of reviews almost always fall prey to too much hype. Even still, I had a better time with Thunderbolts than any other Marvel movie (outside of Deadpool & Wolverine), in recent memory (I’d wager Guardians 3 was the last great one). Granted, the bar hasn’t been too high recently, but this is very decent and hopefully moves the franchise back in the right direction, where we actually can start investing in new characters and having favourites again.
