Well, here we are again. Yet another moment where once more we’re forced to endure yet another wave of posts, articles and Tiktoks telling us how to feel about the current state of the MCU in advance of yet another release adding another chapter to the combined storytelling that’s been going on for the last seventeen years. As someone who has loyalty (but not blindly) followed its progress since Tony Stark first rocked up to Afghanistan, I’ve pretty much heard everything that’s been said about all five phases so far, ranging from numerous claims that it’s dead to frenzied fan worship that sometimes bordered on fanaticism, however while I’ll stick with it through thick and thin, I will freely admit that the connective tissue binding the entries in the Multiverse Saga hasn’t been as strong as it once was.
However, with the release of Thunderbolts*, is there a chance that cinema’s biggest franchise has finally managed to snag some of that old, cohesive magic and Ince again catch lightning in a bottle?
Former brainwashed Black Window operative Yelena Belovais is in an existential funk since the death of her sister, Natasha Romanoff and doing black ops dirty work for shifty CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (we’ll just call her Val from here on out, yeah?), but when Natasha gets her latest mission, she finds that maybe she should be depressed for a reason. You see, thanks to a fair amount of dodgy deals and morally questionable plot, Val is finally in danger of being caught out and impeached for a whole bunch of heinously illegal shit, so she’s doubled down on trying to make all of her dirty laundry go away in one fell swoop – and that includes all the various assassins and super powered thugs she has in her employ. Unbeknownst to one another, Yelena; John Walker, the disgraced former Captain America who now operates as US Agent; phase shifting Ava Starr, aka. Ghost and the ability mimicking Taskmaster are all sent to the same location with the mission to kill each other before the place erupts in flame, thus eliminating all of Val’s secrets in one fell swoop.
However, in the midst of their melee, the group of killers stumble across Bob, a dishevelled, twitchy, seemingly ordinary guy who has somehow wandered into the middle of some big, assassin jamboree and once the group figure out that they’ve been had, they realise that they’re going to have to work together in order to escape their fate. Of course, when you’re more used to being defeated by Ant-Man or the Falcon after performing some horrible act, the tendency to trust a stranger ends up being pretty alien, but once they escape, they’re soon joined by Yelena’s “father”, Alexei Shostakov (aka the washed up Russian super soldier, the Red Guardian) and Bucky Barnes, former Hydra killing machine, current unlikely congressman. However, while Alexei is here to show support, the one time Winter Soldier sees the group as the smoking gun he needs to impeach Val once and for all.
But wait a minute… what about Bob?
There’s a sense that with Thunderbolts*, Marvel is attempting something of a total clean slate, scaling back from cherry red rage monsters wrecking the White House and vast amounts of Multiverse based in-jokes in order to go back to the simpler, more character fueled adventures we used to get way back in phase one. As a result, Thunderbolts* ends up being something of a refreshing change that’s far more obsessed about digging into the mental state of its unlikely heroes than mounting some gargantuan, city obliterating action sequence and is far better for it. In many ways, it uses the original Avengers movie for its template as it arranges a cluster of disparate, costumed characters who all already have established back stories and slings them together thanks to some government based manipulation in order to save the city despite everyone practically despising each other. Of course the twist is here that everyone present has been a villain as some point in their career – even Nick Fury stand-in Valentina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus going full evil Veep) is unrepentantly amoral as Hell and while some people were understandably calling Thunderbolts* Marvel’s Suicide Squad, the final result feels more like the grit of Captain America: The Winter Soldier shot through the prism of the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies. Everyone here has done countless bad things, but they are also rather tragic figures that are in desperate need of some understanding despite their dickish tendencies and in their own way, these messed up people banter, bitch and brawl just the same way Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Thor did when their egos were allowed to clash.
The finished product is possibly Marvel’s most focused movie in yonks as it only takes place in the space of 48 hours and mostly focuses on the character dynamics of the group – but while not every member benefits as well as they could (Olga Kurvlenko’s Taskmaster is a write-off for reasons that will soon become obvious and Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost doesn’t have that much to do beyond the odd withering comment and a bunch of quantum phasing), others blossom in their time in the sun. The best of these is obviously Florence Pugh’s Yelena who has proven herself consistently the best addition in the post-Endgame universe the MCU has and now takes center stage as her character attempts to navigate her depression via saving the world. Elsewhere we find Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes locked on mentor mode with Wyatt Russell’s US Agent wracked with bitterness as he unsuccessfully processes his failures by being a toxic jock with a superiority complex and even though David Harbour’s overbearing Red Guardian is back on heavy handed but genuinely funny comic relief duty, the movie is careful to not let the jokes trample any of the deep stuff (Taikia Watiti take note). However, the most fascinating new addition proves to be Lewis Pullman’s mentally fragile Bob who skates the line between villainizing mental illness (his Sentry persona is essentially a bipolar Superman) and generating genuine empathy for a man with the power of a billion exploding suns.
Director Jake Schreier (who is used to off-beat relationships thanks to his work on Beef and Robot & Frank), handles the action well with an early free-for-all and a five-on-one against the Sentry feeling crisp and quirky, but where the Thunderbolts* really pays off is with its character stuff, which feels more like the stripped back days of Phase 1 and thus feels like literal therapy for both the heroes and anyone who has been a member of the Marvel faithful during the post-Endgame years.
After over five years of COVID, strikes, scandals and uneven quality, the MCU finally seems to have sorted it’s inner workings out as the countdown to the next Avengers movies truly begins. But among all the sterling character work and truly touching subject matter, possibly the most telling aspect that Thunderbolts* gets right more than anything else is that it’s post credits sting may actually be by far the best, most vital one the franchise has offered in about seven years.
Is Marvel back? Well, with roughly seven projects a year, it actually never left – but MCU apologists can take a well earned rest with Thunderbolts*, because no apologies are necessary. Quality control – like lighting!
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