A review of the new superhero movie “Thunderbolts*”
The hugely successful (over $30 billion in revenues) and massively prolonged (17 years and 36 films) Marvel Cinematic Universe has been looking rather lame of late, but this movie has brought some freshness to the franchise. With the Avengers officially history, a new team was required to save the world if not the universe and the producers have brought to the fore an odd bunch of characters who have previously been minor figures in the MCU world.
Step forward Russian daughter and father Yelena Belova and Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, putative Captain America John Walker, Captain America’s friend Bucky Barnes, Ava Starr aka Ghost, and most bizarre and powerful of them all Bob Reynolds aka Sentry aka Void.
Confused? Don’t worry. It becomes even more bewildering when these individual anti-heroes are somehow required to become a team of superheroes and each of them clearly has serious mental health problems. Not for nothing are the first words (from Yelena): “There is something wrong with me.” But it’s all done with a certain panache with lots of action and humour, even if one never fully understands what’s going on or being said.
The originality of the characters and the narrative are enhanced, rather surprisingly for an MCU movie, by some fine acting, especially from Florence Pugh as Yelena and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the ‘boss’ of each of the Thunderbolts aka The New Avengers. Don’t try to think about it all too much – unless you’re an MCU fanatic – just enjoy the fun.
Footnote: What’s with the asterisk in the title? In large part, a marketing device to stir up the expectations of the fan base, it suggests that the title is somehow provisional, foreshadowing the evolution of the Thunderbolts into The New Avengers – I think.