Review: ‘Thunderbolts*’ Is A Fun And Light Marvel Romp

Don’t get too caught up in what the asterisk means. Thunderbolts* has a lot more to it than that footnote indicator.

It is a curious juxtaposition as the film is made up of footnotes — and Bucky (Sebastian Stan) — getting a chance to shine. Yes, it is a team-up made up of some of the likes of Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), Bucky, and Bob (Lewis Pullman). For the moment, we’ll maintain the fiction about Bob even though the spoiler ship sailed long ago. The group is brought together by circumstances and gets its “Thunderbolts” name in a joke uttered so quickly, it might get lost as first. But therein lies the great appeal of the film: its characters.

Led by Pugh’s ex-Black Widow, the characters are surprisingly well-drawn. Yelena, for the example, is running on empty as she’s spent the years since returning from the Blip doing wetwork for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). That life is getting to her as the film begins and Pugh is great at selling that ennui and, dare we say it, depression. It also immediately bonds her with Bob, as he expresses similar feelings as they meet. There chemistry as kindred souls is electric. Nevertheless, this is a comedy, so Yelena also gives as good as she takes from the likes of Walker and her “father,” Alexei. She also bonds with Ghost in a way that is so natural, we wish there was more story there. Or, more to the point, a scene underscoring why Ghost finds such a quick affinity for the mercenary.

But speaking of Walker and Alexei, they get plenty to do and say. The near-antagonistic relationship that forms between Walker and Bob is one of the film’s great runners and arcs. Both actors play it well. Meanwhile, Russell preserves Walker’s dickishness and “also-ran” quality from The Falcon and the Winter Solider for this outing, expanding it as events give him a chance to do something more selfless than we’ve seen before. That said, he also gets a moment to slip into old patterns and it is a great moment for him and the other characters involved. Alexi, meanwhile, remains his boisterous, positive self in the face of so much that it is just heroic. He and Yelena also share an incredible father-daughter moment that is, quite possibly, the highlight of the film.

Stan, meanwhile, remains dependable as Bucky. Although, we have to admit there seems to be a scene missing to explain how the freshman congressman from Brooklyn is, once again, in his Winter Soldier getup. Also, we would have loved for him to more directly acknowledged that he’s teamed up with a bunch of rejects. He does, of course, but not with all the comedy or pathos it could contain.

Comedy, though, is a specialty for Louis-Dreyfus and she brings that edge to Val, buoyed this time by her assistant, Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan), who brings a fantastic energy as she grapples with the reality of her boss’s plans. Does that mean Val is the villain of the piece? Possibly, but Thunderbolts* is refreshingly ambiguous on that front. Val could be operating from a noble intention even if her methods have a certain Company stink on them.

Bob, meanwhile, also seems to sit in both the protagonist and antagonist seats. A deep explanation would constitute a spoiler, though, so we will say he covers the material quite well and we hope Bob sticks around for what happens in Avengers: Doomsday. His place in the film also speaks to the more understated plotting here. Unlike Captain America: Brave New World, where the world hinged on every revelation, the plot of Thunderbolts* largely exists to serve the character development.

One quibble, though: all that growth for the characters makes us wish both Ghost and Taskmaster had a little more to do. As we said above, the former’s near-instant bond with Yelena could be explored further and Taskmaster … well, we just wish both character and actor really had a moment to shine.

Nonetheless, it is understandable why some of the characters get short-changed as there is a lot of character work here. Other than Ghost, Taskmaster, and Mel, everyone moves forward from where they were in their last appearance. Each learns something about themselves and that’s a genuinely remarkable thing. Most of these characters are — in other contexts — the joke delivery mechanism and it is a credit to Marvel Studios, screenwriters Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, and director Jake Schreier that they would attempt to round out the people they do. It’s not a leap to guess Marvel wants to be in business with Florence Pugh, for example, so Yelena is served the best by the expansion of the character. But that also translates to (most of) the others as the ride is colored by Yelena’s emotional state. In fact, we’d argue the film is doggedly about depression and really sparks to life when its true antagonist embodies the hopelessness suffers of the disease can feel.

Again, though, we bump up against the spoilery side of things to examine the film’s relationship to depression. Instead, we’ll say this: the topic is couched in a lot of fun character interplay, some well-realized action sequences, and Pugh’s star power.

It all adds up to a fun romp that may not move the Multiverse Saga forward in a significant way — that would be a lot to ask of this film — but nonetheless elevates most of its characters to a higher status and inadvertently creates a team we’d like to spend a little more time with, if just to watch them argue among themselves.