Fans of the Marvel comic “Thunderbolts” may have had mixed feelings about this new feature film. I know I sure have. The original series was about a team of superheroes who were secretly villains in disguise, who planned to use their celebrity and misplaced public trust to take over the world. It’s one of the cleverest ideas Marvel ever had for a series, and it would have made a pretty cool movie. So it’s odd that the Marvel Cinematic Universe took the title but abandoned the premise.
Then again, there was more to “Thunderbolts” than that one high concept. Eventually it went grimdark, with a team of despicable supervillains forced to play nice for their freedom, à la “Suicide Squad.” But in the middle there, Fabian Nicieza converted the series into a freewheeling, excitingly plotted team book about ex-villains struggling to do the right thing. That’s the version of “Thunderbolts” Marvel embraces with their new film. And although it’s hard to shake the sense that on a practical level this studio is just scraping the bottom of the barrel, desperately hoping their minor characters can be converted into headliners, they’ve done a damn good job of it.
“Thunderbolts*” is the first Marvel movie in years that doesn’t feel like it was either mangled in post or, just as bad, a shameless act of self-congratulation. It’s a film about its characters, not about its universe, and it’s more concerned with the protagonists’ lives and what their actions mean than about sequel set-ups and cameos. It’s shot and edited as if there was a plan all along, a plan that actually came together, which is rare for the MCU these days. “Thunderbolts*” may be the umpteenth film in an increasingly unremarkable studio franchise, but it’s not a studio hack job. It’s a tragedy that Marvel has lowered our standards to the point that “not a studio hack job” qualifies as high praise, but luckily, that’s not all “Thunderbolts*” has going for it.
The movie stars Florence Pugh as Yelena, the new Black Widow, who has serious depression following the death of her sister, Natasha. Yelena is working for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and her latest assignment is to destroy evidence of de Fontaine’s disastrous scientific experiment to create new superheroes.
Yup, Yelena has “one last job,” so you know it’s about to go pear-shaped. She’s supposed to kill Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), the villain from the second “Ant-Man” movie, but, surprise! John Walker (Wyatt Russell), the villain from “Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” shows up to kill Yelena, and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), the villain from “Black Widow,” shows up to kill Walker. And I’m pretty sure Ghost is supposed to kill Taskmaster too, or vice-versa, but it gets a little confusing for a couple of minutes.
The point is, all these has-been villains and wannabe heroes get set up to kill each other, and now they’re on the run, with a mysterious new guy named Bob (Lewis Pullman) along for the ride. Bob is part of the “Sentry” experiment de Fontaine is trying to cover up, and if you’ve read the comics you know where that is going. If you haven’t, the Sentry isn’t exactly a household name, so let’s not ruin the plot entirely.
Suffice it to say these Thunderbolts* — accidentally named after Yelena’s elementary school sports team — are on the run and Congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) is chasing them down since they’re witnesses to de Fontaine’s corruption. She’s being impeached at the moment, but exactly which role she plays in the American government is never actually said out loud. It’s a big one though! Allegedly. I guess. “Thunderbolts*” isn’t terribly interested in American politics, to the point where you wonder why they even brought the subject up. You’d think a superhero congressman would deserve a bigger subplot than this, but oh well.
“Thunderbolts*” is about a team of antiheroes on the run, getting to know each other, forming a bond, becoming proper heroes. That’s a perfectly decent structure, but it’s been done — and in the MCU no less. That’s not why the movie resonates. In the end, director Jake Schreier (“Paper Towns”) is making a movie about mental health, in which these heroes are held back by their shame, their loneliness and their insecurity. By the end of the story they team up not to save the world — although they might do that, too — but to save themselves from debilitating misery.
That may not sound fun, and that’s what’s so wonderful. “Thunderbolts*” has the quippy humor we’ve come to expect from Marvel movies, and it’s actually pretty funny for once. But unlike most Marvel movies, it’s not afraid to have feelings. The sad moments in “Thunderbolts*” aren’t undercut by jokes and aren’t tossed aside to get to the action. It is indeed possible to have your cake and eat it too, if your “cake” is clinical depression and “eating it too” is kicking butt.
“Thunderbolts*” may not be Marvel’s greatest accomplishment, but there’s not a whole lot to complain about. Two of the Thunderbolts get the short shrift, character-wise, and that’s a bummer but it’s par for the course in an ensemble team movie. The film has a grey, muted color palette that undermines some of the otherwise crafty camerawork and intriguing visual choices, making it look at a glance more like a straight-to-video Jean-Claude Van Damme movie from the 2000s than a big budget blockbuster. These aren’t catastrophic complaints but dang it, the nits are there, so we must pick them. (If you think nits don’t matter, you should try being covered in nits.)
Ultimately, “Thunderbolts*” fits into the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper, but not as a flagship enterprise. For once, these Marvel movies feel genuinely working class: the headliners have skedaddled, leaving has-beens and day-players the chance to take center stage, in this movie and also in real life. The thought of watching forgotten characters from forgotten movies work through their issues may not dazzle you, but Pugh is, as usual, perfection. Louis-Dreyfus is an excellent villain. Pullman is doing complex work. Schreier’s film makes you care, whether you gave a crap before or not, and at this point in the franchise that’s a big accomplishment.
“Thunderbolts*” hits theaters this Friday.
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