Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: a group of charming antiheroes with varying degrees of “super” qualities band together to form a team under the direction of a shadowy government organization. No, it’s not the Suicide Squad. What if said motley crew find themselves protecting the citizens of New York City from the flying debris and collateral damage of an all-powerful sky-bound entity? Nope, not the Avengers, either — or not quite, at least.
Déjà vu times two is understandable when it comes to this brand-new darkly merry bunch, known, for now, as the “Thunderbolts*.” Their assembling is the new direction of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (now a whopping 36 films deep) even if it feels, at times, like familiar territory rather than uncharted waters.
Jake Schreier directs the film, written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, which also serves as a stand-alone picture for Yelena Belova, Black Widow’s spunky little sister, played with punky pluck by Florence Pugh. Her performance of Yelena, also trained as an assassin in the Red Room, was worth the price of admission for “Black Widow,” and her return also means the appearance of David Harbour as Alexei, aka Red Guardian, her father figure and the washed-up Soviet version of Captain America.
Passing knowledge of “Black Widow” as well as the new iterations of Captain America (“Brave New World,” “The Falcon and Winter Soldier”) are helpful, as once again, this MCU film is knit together with characters and lore from various film and television properties. But the spine of the narrative is Yelena’s existential crisis, as she struggles to locate a sense of purpose while ruminating on her violent past. As a scrappy mercenary, she struts and snarls through her tasks, though her heart’s not in the work.
Florence Pugh, left, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen and David Harbour in Marvel Studios’ “Thunderbolts*.” (Marvel Studios/TNS)
Pugh could make anything compelling to watch on her own, but she excels bouncing off other characters too. The first hour of “Thunderbolts*” is a fun showcase for what has always been the strength of the MCU: the banter and rivalry and jockeying for position between supercharged heroes and villains, whether in the halls of Congress or between murderers-for-hire.
Schreier presents this in a sleek yet grounded style, with an emphasis on practical effects and stunts, slick fight choreography and dialogue that’s funny but never too sarcastically quippy, foregrounding Yelena’s emotional journey. She finds herself on “one last job” at the behest of embattled CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) that turns out to be much more complicated than advertised, and lands her in a sticky situation with the rest of the soon-to-be Thunderbolts team.
These scenes are a joy to watch, with a nagging mystery swirling the center thanks to a wholly unexpected new arrival (Lewis Pullman), comic relief courtesy of Harbour and some beautifully executed action sequences. A motorcycle chase in the desert featuring freshman congressman/reformed baddie Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) is breathtaking, and nods to classic ‘80s action movies. It’s entertaining, paced well and looks great. If only it could sustain that groove the entire time.
Unfortunately, “Thunderbolts*” falls victim to a classic MCU third-act trap: the all-powerful villain is simply too powerful. When the ante is so up, the only way Pearson and Calo can save the day is to take a wild tack into a metaphysical realm that ultimately reads more after-school special than plausible problem solving. There is is a powerful message about self-worth and relying on others for support for a group of people who are variously referred to as “losers,” “trash” and “evidence” of de Fontaine’s extrajudicial overreach, but do the MCU movies have to be about trauma too? Horror has already run through that theme and back around, so it’s a bit hard to take seriously.
For DC’s Suicide Squad of supervillains, their ultra-snide attitude never wavered. As cheeky as our MCU heroes can be, there’s always an inherent earnestness at play, and that is the source of the tonal wobble that bedevils the otherwise strong “Thunderbolts*.” These antiheroes are never really allowed to be all that “anti,” and where’s the fun in that? Pugh does single-handedly hold it together through sheer charm and steely determination, and if this is the new direction of the MCU, we could be in worse hands than hers.
‘Thunderbolts*’
2.5 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: PG-13 (for strong violence, language, thematic elements, and some suggestive and drug references)
Running time: 2:06
How to watch: In theaters on Friday, May 2
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