What is it going to take for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to right the ship? Even the monolith’s most diehard fans are starting to lose faith as each new movie or TV show seems to make the larger whole seem more disconnected while also failing to meet expectations of excitement on individual levels. A lot of folks felt this past February’s Captain America: Brave New World represented some kind of nadir for the whole concern, so there has been plenty of expectation brewing that Thunderbolts* (yes, asterisk included; no, don’t ask why) will give us all something to have fun with again. Well, don’t hold your breath.
Arriving as something like Marvel’s version of both David Ayer’s Suicide Squad and James Gunn’s (vastly superior) The Suicide Squad, Thunderbolts* is the MCU version of the scrappy D-listers-on-a-mission movie. In this case, we’re given Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Red Guardian (David Harbour), sister and father respectively of the late Black Widow; Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), who was one of the villains in Ant Man and the Wasp; now-Senator Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan, always showing up for his dinner in these, God bless him); and John Walker aka U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), ported over from one of the myiad Disney+ shows. And for what it’s worth, Taskmaster, who also appeared in Black Widow, is around for a brief scene, and you get to see the face of the actress who played her (Olga Kurylenko) for about one shot.
This roster of assorted weirdos and losers is brought together by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss), whom the series has gradually been offering up as some sort of anti-Nick Fury, a shadowy political operator clearly up to no good whatsoever. As these things go, she tasks our heroes with retrieving some important stuff from a secret base somewhere. And as these things go, that mission is really just a setup, and she’s instead planning to clean house, intending to kill everyone involved once the job is done. That aforementioned important stuff turns out to be Bob (Lewis Pullman, doing some sort of Mork from Ork impersonation that’s endlessly grating), who seems to have nascent powers he doesn’t understand but which of course will be crucial to the rest of the movie.
Directed by Jake Schreier, the action — of which there is precious little — is generally of the punching and kicking variety, and at least it’s executed more legibly than your average Marvel flick manages (surprising, coming from the director of Robot & Frank), even if it’s not particularly dynamic (less surprising, coming from the director of Paper Towns). A climax of people being rescued from falling CGI wreckage before being vaporized into creepy black sumdges by Bob also makes for a handful of arresting images. Unfortunately, those instances are surprisingly outliers, and most of Thunderbolts* seems merely desperate to coast on charm. Pugh, whose Yelena is clearly positioned as the main character here, proved herself to be the comic highlight of Black Widow, and she’s again doing her best to carry things in a similar fashion, but the material just isn’t funny enough, and her and Harbour’s corny Russian accents eventually overwhelm any personality either of them is meant to exhibit. The other characters, meanwhile, barely register, including Stan’s Winter Soldier, relegated this time out to grumpy scoutmaster/inspirational speech guy. The emotional thrust of Thunderbolts* wants very much to focus on Yelena’s and Bob’s potentially suicidal depression brought on by regret and trauma, but that’s all mostly taken for granted with regard to substance, registering only as a dose of dumdum subtext aiming to trick viewers into believing this isn’t just another damn MCU steamed ham. By the time the crew gets a new team name after the mid-credits teaser for Fantastic Four, coming out in two months, any such illusion has long been dispelled. Thunderbolts* is just more assembly line junk.
DIRECTOR: Jake Schreier; CAST: Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Sebastian Stan, Lewis Pullman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus; DISTRIBUTOR: Walt Disney Pictures; IN THEATERS: May 2; RUNTIME: 2 hr. 6 min.
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