Thunderbolts* is the most human movie the Marvel Cinematic Universe has produced in years, and that is true on multiple fronts. For starters, the script, as written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, is earnestly invested in exploring the internal lives of its super-powered characters and prioritizes the development of their interpersonal relationships. On top of that, director Jake Schreier (of Beef and Paper Towns) brings an empathetic and grounded eye to the proceedings. The film is very much anchored in the performances of its central cast. Despite the fact that this is very much a loose-ends assembly of B-list side-characters from across the larger MCU, it is an assembly of some incredibly talented actors, all of whom deliver solid performances. Florence Pugh and Bill Pullman are both standouts, while Sebastian Stan gets to serve as the film’s ultimate badass scene-stealer, and does so with aplomb.
In addition to all of this, it’s also a human MCU movie in the sense that it feels like a real movie, with actual things actually happening. Over the course of the past several years, the MCU has grown increasingly reliant upon extensive digital effects work, to the extent that numerous of their big ensemble films have had actors film on-set at completely different times. Fortunately, Thunderbolts* is a return to a much more practical, tactile kind of filmmaking, with real sets, tons of practical effects work, and in-camera stunts. Cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo (of You’re Next and A Ghost Story) brings a real sense of texture and heft to the images as well, which is unexpected and absolutely wonderful.
A Soft Reboot of the Post-Endgame MCU
A few years back, after a glut of less-than-stellar releases between numerous films and Disney+ streaming shows, Marvel Studios announced that it would be paring things back and moving forward with a more refined sense of intention and purpose. Thunderbolts* is fairly evidently the first film released after this internal realigning of priorities, and boy does it show in ways both good and ill.
On the one hand, the difference between the MCU’s previous film, Captain America: Brave New World, released just a few months ago, and this could not be more staggering. That film was an incoherent, bloated, and frequently atrocious mess, while Thunderbolts* is a predominantly cohesive and often incredibly well-crafted work. On the other hand, Thunderbolts* makes an effort early on to sever ties with pretty much any of the substantial consequences of MCU films from across the past several years and instead just kind of sets things back to a status quo: the Avengers are gone, what happens now? It works for the purposes of the film, but by the time the credits roll, it’s apparent that this has also been done to streamline the larger narrative of the franchise and dovetail into the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday crossover without having to address any of that other stuff.
The Action is Superb
From the very get-go, Thunderbolts* is an action-heavy film, and its action is some of the best the MCU has featured, bar-none. Jake Schreier brings a real sense of purpose, place, and vision to his work behind the camera and it pays off in spades. Not only is the action filmed fluidly, coherently, and impactfully, with often inspired choreography, but it’s also incredibly well-written. Every fight comes out of character-rooted conflict, is driven by palpable motivations, and challenges the respective characters it features in interesting ways.
To be frank, I was a bit concerned going in about the line-up of characters here. In the comics, the Thunderbolts team is an eclectic assembly of diversified super-powered individuals, but here, it is just a bunch of characters who, as Florence Pugh points out in the film, “punch and shoot.” However, this winds up being a real strength of the film, as the lack of extravagant powers brings a grounded sense to the proceedings and allows Schreier and his team to do things much more practically. Notably, once the film does really start attempting to incorporate an individual with more overtly fantastical super-powers, it’s visual vernacular falls a bit flat.
It Bites Off More Than It Can Chew
Thunderbolts* is a film overtly about the audience’s relationship with the MCU. It’s a film that literally opens with the life getting sucked out of the trademark Marvel Studios logo and then spends a large chunk of its runtime having characters ponder about the state of superheroics and who, if anyone, will be there to save the world when the time comes. In addition to this, it’s also attempting to be an earnest interrogation of depression and loneliness in modern society. On the plus side, this makes it the most relevant MCU film from across the last several years by a fairly wide margin, as it is actually attempting to communicate with a present-tense audience rather than simply mining nostalgia or referencing past events.
On the down side, this is still a Marvel film, and ultimately needs these threads to come to an audience-pleasing conclusion, which isn’t exactly possible. Thunderbolts* may give it a good run, with these threads explored interestingly throughout the film, but ultimately comes to an obscenely lackluster conclusion on both fronts.
The Machinations of the MCU Break the End of this Movie
One of the real strengths of Thunderbolts* is the degree to which it is a singular story. It may take bits and pieces of characters from other Marvel media to forge its line-up, but it mostly stands on its own two feet and functions as an individual film-going experience. However, all of that falls by the wayside in the film’s final moments, as the individual story at-play here has its spine broken by the MCU’s need to expedite things to get to next summer’s Avengers: Doomsday. The film’s final beat leaves its characters on a path toward big narrative things, but does so at the expense of anything resembling thematic culmination or satisfaction. It rings so unbelievably hollow because it is so obviously tacked-on post-haste, and directly chafes against everything the film and the arcs of these characters were headed toward.
RGM GRADE
(B-)
Overall, I found Thunderbolts* to be a really strong MCU outing that was rooted in character, featured great action, and excelled off the back of embracing practical filmmaking once more. However, I found its third act to be largely dismaying, and found its final scene to be egregiously unsatisfying. Audiences may cheer at the end of the film as the asterisk’s meaning is revealed and the film’s “real” title is unveiled, but it comes at the cost of everything the film and its characters were supposed to have learned over the course of the film.
