By Marc S. Sanders
Thunderbolts* is the next Marvel movie out of the assembly line, the second of 2025 (after Captain America: Brave New World). A new team is haphazardly assembled and the witty lines come through that poke fun at their idiosyncrasies and their origins. Yelena (Florence Pugh) is the Russian assassin with a daredevil streak. John Walker (Wyatt Russell) is the wannabe Captain America known formally as U.S. Agent. There’s Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) who can teleport in and out of places, and Red Guardian (David Harbour), the Soviet equivalent of Captain America with a shaggy beard, a beer belly and an adorably estranged father/daughter relationship with Yelena. Bucky, The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) is back too. We’ve talked enough about him though.
Marvel and Disney are advertising this cast as the anti-heroes, or anti-Avengers and the film lives up to that mantra. However, it still has the witty banter of those other superhero team up pictures. What sets this one apart though is that eventually the characters and the story use their brain and a little welcome psychosis for a thrilling final act that leaves you alarmed while welcoming you to empathize.
The strongest actor and most dimensional character portrayal belongs to Florence Pugh. No doubt that she carries the film as she leads us into an unexpected underground trap where the other members of this cast are all trying to kill each other at the assigned behest of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Yelena quickly figures out Valentina’s deceit while overlooking an innocent looking Frankenstein’s monster of a young man named Bob (Lewis Pullman). The others are there to just exercise their skills for some cool action scene edits, and tag along with Yelena and Bob. An escape out of the underground structure might overstay its welcome, but fortunately the characters are fun.
Once the escape is complete, the action gets better from there with explosions and fire power and such. Cars and a limo go boom. Bullets deflect everywhere.
Naturally, disaster eventually has to arrive in New York City and it is up to these Thunderbolts* to save the city. Honestly, as the citizens kept on disappearing into blackness, I kept asking myself why Dr. Strange or Spider-Man didn’t show up. That’s the become the unwelcome problem with the Marvel films and their ongoing connections to each other. Why would I expect a teleporter and a group of acrobatic fighters who carry shields and handguns to stop a godlike entity that is destroying New York City? Last I recall, Stephen Strange was not dead. I had to look past the obvious though because there’s interesting material that harbors itself during this third act.
Florence Pugh and Lewis Pullman steer the reins to triumph, and it is more so done with an underlying, bordering hokey message that these two capable actors balance quite well. There’s punching and running and screaming and superpower stuff, yes. However, the win works on an emotional level too, setting itself apart from the various Avengers movies. There’s good editing to be found here as the characters jump from one room to another as personal demons are confronted. The room jumps make you feel like you are in that inflatable wonder wheel you would walk on in the swimming pool. It certainly keeps you alert. All the while, Yelena, the skilled martial arts assassin, uses her brains and instinct to rescue her teammates and especially Bob.
The debate rages on the oversaturation of superhero movies and how they might be destroying cinema. I’ve never been so quick to surrender to that argument. The box office of these films keep jobs in place for a large multi-billion dollar industry and the profits to be made allow for small more arthouse like films to be produced. Also, they are still so fun and entertaining if you allow yourself not to be such a film snob. So, stop complaining so much.
As for the material of these pictures, Thunderbolts* is a good, up to date example of not simply relying on special effects and city destruction with another villain of the week. It has a Ghostbusters/Men In Black humorous vibe to it while still catering to intrinsic insecurities and personal baggage that all of us carry through life. Sometimes, when we want to escape to the movies, it helps to uncover someone telling a story that gets me, gets you…gets all of us.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 