Pleasantly Surprising: A Review of Thunderbolts*

 directed by Jake Schreier

written by Erik Pearson and Joana Calo 

created by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley

It had been a while since I truly enjoyed a movie set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As much as I enjoyed last year's Deadpool and Wolverine, that was not, strictly speaking, an MCU film as both those characters were remnants of the Fox Marvel Universe. As many excuses as I have made for Captain America: Brave New World I really didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped I would. I basically hadn't really enjoyed a Marvel movie all that much since 2023's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Fortunately, all that ended when I finally saw Thunderbolts, directed by Jake Schreier and starring Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell and Hannah John Kamen as an unusual band of protagonists who can't quite be called heroes but who, for now, are all the world has got. 

The film starts with a spectacular stunt as Yelena (Pugh) skydives off a building in Kuala Lumpur, where she then torches a secret lab on orders of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis Dreyfus). Having buried her sister Natasha a few years back, Yelena is deeply depressed and in the middle of an existential crisis. After meeting up with her father figure, Alexei (Harbour) former super soldier Red Guardian who is now eking out a living as a limo driver,  Yelena asks Val for a change of pace from her covert missions. Val promises to give her just that, but first, she needs to do one more mission for her in a secluded bunker in the middle of nowhere. Val is under intense scrutiny by Congress for her secret, unethical research projects conducted through her shady company O.X.E. and is looking to clean up all evidence of them. Among those looking into her activities is freshman Congressman Bucky Barnes (Stan).  Yelena arrives at the bunker and, to her surprise, finds herself confronting disgraced Captain America John Walker (Russell), the Ghost (John-Kamen), and the Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).  They all fight, but shortly thereafter Yelena and the others realize that they were all sent there to die. The situation becomes even more complicated when a man dressed in pajamas named Bob (Lewis Pullman) appears, seemingly out of nowhere.  In short order, Val and an army of O.X.E.'s security arrive onsite.

Fortunately, Alexei has found out where Yelena is heading by eavesdropping on Val while chauffering for her, and, at the same time, Bucky has hit paydirt because Val's assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan), alarmed at the goings-on at the secret bunker, has given him a call, leading him to the bunker, where Yelena and the gang are now fighting for their lives. High jinks ensue.  

What follows is hardly an ideal team-up, but the reluctant allies will need to get it together to face the truly formidable threat that Valentina is about to unleash.

While I had been looking forward to this movie, I didn't quite have high expectations. Captain America: Brave New World was a genuine disappointment but this movie gave off a different, more promising energy in its trailers, and fortunately, it mostly lived up to its promise. 

Most of what worked in this film is stuff that Marvel has done before; practical action set pieces, lots of banter between the leads and some pretty decent action.  They have even touched on mental health before, as Tony Stark quite clearly grappled with post-traumatic stress disorder in Iron Man 3 as a result of the events in The Avengers. 

Still, this film hits a bit differently, as director Jake Schrier and writers Eric Pearson and Jaona Calo apply these tools to tell a story that manages to feel both fresh and familiar at the same time.  As many other writers have already observed, what sets this apart from other Marvel movies is just how much it leans into the emotional trauma of its lead characters, particularly Yelena and Bob.  Pugh and Pullman in particular stand out, but all of the actors do a bang-up job with the characters handed to them. I liked the chemistry, especially the banter between Walker and Yelena, or sometimes Walker and Ghost, as well as the moments in which Alexei is fanboying out over his old hero, the Winter Soldier. 

The action set pieces were quite well-staged, and it was gratifying to know that much of it was practically done, save of course for the stuff that obviously couldn't have been.  

Of course, some of the writing is a bit silly; there are a few too many convenient coincidences for my liking, and the idea of selecting mentally unstable people for experiments that could give them godlike power still feels downright bizarre, but overall the storytelling is thoroughly engaging, thanks to winning performances from everyone involved, especially from Pullman, who, for me at least, is the breakout star of this movie.  

The best part of this movie, for me, was how surprisingly emotional it was; this isn't necessarily something new from Marvel, considering it's brought us gut-wrenching movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, but it's uncommon enough that it is a welcome development when one of their lighter movies has a solid emotional core. 

I wouldn't go so far as to proclaim that Marvel's back but I definitely find myself looking forward to July's Fantastic Four: First Steps with a bit more enthusiasm than I used to have.  

8.5/10