The Comics Canon

WHAT ABOUT BOB? David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh and Wyatt Rusell star in Thunderbolts* (Marvel Studios)

Review by Curt Holman

Marvel Studios’ 36th movie is called Thunderbolts*, which tells you two things:

1. It’s about the antihero team that’s been a part of Marvel Comics for almost 30 years.
2. The title ends with a cheeky asterisk, so… maybe it’s not?

Thunderbolts*’ early cast announcements and trailers made clear that the film wasn’t using the killer premise from Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley’s introductory run on the title. The original 1997 Thunderbolts were a band of established villains masquerading as heroes, doing the right things for the wrong reasons. (It’s a great idea! Where’s THAT streaming series?)

Instead, we were introduced to a grab-bag of assassins and antiheroes from such recent MCU projects as Black Widow, Ant-Man and the Wasp and the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and a film that seemed closer to the Suicide Squad-style hook of the more recent comics.

Ultimately, Thunderbolts* feels most like the original Guardians of the Galaxy movie, throwing together some wisecracking losers and malcontents for adventures that turn them into an unlikely found family. Thunderbolts* arrives in theaters carrying a lot of baggage, as well as Marvel Studios’ hopes for reversing the slumping franchise. Almost miraculously, it manages to stay out of its own way, delivering more heart than you expect amid the MCU’s patented quips and spectacle.

The film gets off on the right foot by centering the story on Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, surrogate sister to (and replacement for) the Black Widow, a.k.a. Natasha Romanov. Pugh is one of the most promising actors of her generation, and here she’s able to comfortably carry the demands of action melodrama and comedy.

Pugh’s particularly blessed because screenwriters Eric Pearson and Joanna Call have a sharp take on the character. The film opens with Yelena on a mission but, in voice-over, discussing how she’s haunted by her bloody profession and grieving her dead sister. This manifests not in cliches of “grappling with inner demons” but instead, very relatably, in a low-grade depression over her days being unfulfilling and blah. In her first lines she talks about feeling an emptiness inside — a void, if you will — which provides a strong through-line for the characterizations and the heroics.

Yelena has been working as an operative for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (an underwritten Julia Louis-Dreyfuss), the current CIA director whose recurring MCU role has been as kind of a corrupt Nick Fury. The U.S. Capitol is holding impeachment hearings for Valentina, drawing the attention of Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), now an improbable member of Congress. That Bucky, a former brainwashed assassin known as The Winter Soldier who has never shown any social graces, is now a successful politician doesn’t make any narrative sense, but works as a perplexing joke.

Valentina orders Yelena to a remote secret base to tie off the loose ends of one of her many sinister schemes. There, Yelena finds herself at odds with other super-agents on similar missions, including the intangible Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and disgraced former Captain America John Walker (Wyatt Russell). Has Valentina set them up? Also on the scene is Bob (Lewis Pullman), a hapless civilian who’s surely not the innocent milquetoast he appears. Thunderbolts* clicks into place once the characters become reluctant allies, with Russell making Walker, a posturing, macho asshole, into a great comedic foil for the others.

Yelena and the others try to survive death traps, hit squads and their mutual hostility while bickering over whether they should investigate the mysteries before them or just go into hiding. Along the way, they pick up Bucky as well as Yelena’s surrogate father Red Guardian (David Harbour), a washed-up ex-Soviet super-soldier and scene-stealing comic relief figure. The action comes to a head in Manhattan, literally in the shadow of some major events in Marvel movie history, but this group — who may or may not even be called “Thunderbolts” — seem completely unequal to the cataclysmic threat that emerges.

Marvel Studios has become notorious for taking promising young directors and running roughshod over them. Thunderbolts*’ Jake Schreier seems to be an exception, giving this franchise entry some genuine personality. I never saw his film Robot & Frank but was impressed with his work directing the Netflix miniseries Beef, and he brings out similar snappy rhythms and raw emotions to Thunderbolts*’ character interactions. Pugh and Pullman effectively carry the running theme of battling depression, which becomes literal as the film’s finale finds an alternative to the usual shoot-shoot, punch-punch action stereotypes.

Some reviewers have called Thunderbolts* the best MCU movie since Avengers: Endgame, which I think is an overstatement. It has some derivative qualities and is neither as ambitious nor as spectacular as Wakanda Forever or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. But in its smaller, more contained way, it might be the most satisfying. Everyone involved seems to appreciate that, if you don’t care about the characters, what’s the point?

Thunderbolts*. Grade: B. Stars Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan. Directed by Jake Schreier. Rated PG-13.