Why Thunderbolts is the best Marvel movie in ages
It’s a time of great peril in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The world’s biggest film franchise has struggled ever since Avengers: Endgame, a fact highlighted by March’s Captain America: Brave New World. The drab action thriller that illustrated every superhero trope audiences have tired of. As the MCU looks to reset, could their saviours come in the form of lesser-known characters from previous adventures?
Thunderbolts – styled as Thunderbolts* with an asterisk – finds humanity looking for a new saviour following the demise of The Avengers. For the last few years, CIA chief Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) has been recruiting mercenaries to carry out missions that benefit her illegal biological experiments. They include assassin Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh); former Captain America John Walker (Wyatt Russell); and former Ant-Man adversary Ghost (Hannah-John Kamen).
When Valentina comes under investigation for these experiments, she locks all the evidence in an incinerator – including her three operatives. Escaping at the last minute, the reluctant allies team up to get to safety. However, when one of Valentina’s experiments (Lewis Pullman) becomes a threat, they join forces with former Avenger Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) to become the super hero team nobody knew they wanted.
Whether or not you recognise this new gang depends on how closely you’ve kept up with Marvel. The Thunderbolts are mostly a mix of side characters from 2021’s Black Widow and TV miniseries Falcon and the Winter Soldier, so not exactly the A-list, although to an extent that’s the point. The film (wisely) doesn’t focus too heavily on lore and even newbies will get the gist that these are bad people making the choice to be good. Limiting the action to two neat settings makes the film more manageable, unburdened from the wider multiverse, setting out on the kind of satisfying, self-contained mission that made Marvel popular in the first place.
What makes it the best Marvel film in a long time, however, is its decision to get cerebral. The overarching theme of the story is trauma, with characters discussing the pain of their past and even, in one scene, about the idea of ending it all. Yelena is wracked with guilt over her actions; Walker is dealing with a broken marriage; and Pullman’s mysterious Bob deconstructs the very idea of superheroism.
In many ways, this acts as Marvel’s dark night of the soul. The studio synonymous with heroes stops to question exactly what that word means, and if a life on either side of the moral divide creates a void too big to escape. That idea is taken too literally in the third act, but it’s a blessing to have a film that’s interested in telling a story rather than advertising a new chapter.
Despite the weighty subject matter, the film is a lot of fun. These misfits stuck in a room together inspire the same kind of snippy banter than made Guardians of The Galaxy and The Suicide Squad so good. The action is more grounded too, given that, as Yelena admits, they are more about “punching and shooting” than spectacular superpowers.
Pugh is the focal point, playing Yelena as a bruised antihero in need of family. Stan is also interesting as Barnes, now a politician adjusting to life getting things done through diplomacy rather than combat. David Harbour is the comic relief as Red Guardian, a Russian Captain America knock-off and Yelena’s father, who joins the group in hope of reigniting his glory days.
In a franchise not always known for its villains, Dreyfuss is a delight as the corrupt equivalent of Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury. Firing off cutting putdowns to her subordinates and manipulating everything she can, she’s despicable in all the right ways. Pullman may be the standout, however, with Bob’s dual role as both victim and threat needing a range that the actor pulls off with aplomb.
Thunderbolts may not be the film that kick starts Marvel’s future, but it is a fun ride that proves taking risks with the formula pays off.
Thunderbolts is in cinemas now