The latest installment in the labyrinthine Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), “Thunderbolts*” feels like a cognizant attempt to recenter a film series grown unwieldy. When “The Avengers” was getting off the ground in 2012, there was something palpably exciting about the grand experiment of it all. The MCU felt dangerous, or as dangerous as the Hollywood machine can make superhero movies feel, and the output was surprisingly fruitful. Over 20 films and 10 years, leading to “Avengers: Endgame,” the Marvel train kept on the tracks, barreling with ever-increasing velocity toward complete domination of media, creating a model that almost every other major film studio tried and ultimately failed to replicate. Remember Universal’s “Dark Universe”? Exactly. But the problem with sprawling narrative universes, whether in comics or movies, is that eventually the momentum slows and story choices don’t pan out, leaving creators and audiences in a swirling, untameable maelstrom of their own creation. Since the triumph of “Avengers: Endgame,” the MCU has largely languished, spreading itself too thin both creatively and culturally, backpedaling away from bold story decisions and largely flailing to recover the proprietary magic sparked by “Iron Man” into a generation-defining phenomenon; a phenomenon built on making audiences fall in love with characters they have never even known before. Nobody cared about Iron Man in 2008. The Guardians of the Galaxy meant nothing in 2011. And yet, through deft storytelling, these second-tier characters and scoundrels became beloved. If Marvel did it once, maybe they can do it again. Maybe they can do it with “Thunderbolts*.”
Do they succeed? Eh. Kind of.
I keep thinking about a scene in Adam McKay’s “The Big Short” where Anthony Bourdain (RIP) is tasked with explaining to general audiences what a Synthetic Collateralized Debt Obligation is and why that led to the collapse of the housing market in 2008. He does this by representing bad mortgage loans as day-old fish and the Synthetic CDO as a shady seafood stew. “It’s not day-old fish,” says Bourdain, “It’s a whole new thing.” As a seafood stew cobbled together from a selection of largely second-tier scrub characters, “Thunderbolts*” somehow works as a cohesive, entertaining story despite a glaringly apparent patchwork of rewrites and corporate edicts. To even try to explain the story to anyone without a passing interest in these things seems futile, but I’ll give it a shot. The Avengers are dispersed, and several anti-heroes/out-and-out villains are being contracted by the current CIA Director and former weapons manufacturing maven, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), to clean up her dirty laundry before Congress can impeach her. These characters include: Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah Dominique John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko); the spy sister of Black Widow, a discount B-Tier Captain America ostracized for murdering a civilian, the disappearing/reappearing villain from “Ant Man & The Wasp,” and the fancy fighting villain from “Black Widow.” These mercenaries have been doing de Fontaine’s dirty work for years but when she sends them on a mission that pits them against one another, these misfits and murderers have to team up with Yelena’s father/C-Tier Captain America the Red Guardian (David Harbour) and the Winter Soldier himself, Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) to discover the truth about what horrors they were tasked with covering up.
That’s a mouthful. But to it’s credit, the movie tries it’s best to introduce five or six different characters who aren’t “new” but very well might be to audiences who don’t remember that John Walker was in a TV show five years ago and Yelena was a big part of both “Black Widow” AND the TV show “Hawkeye.” At least the movie takes some time to establish those two, while poor Ghost is largely forgotten, besides being very helpful in a pinch with her fancy walking-through-walls routine. As a discount “Suicide Squad,” The Thunderbolts have little novelty to offer; while the movie itself admits that most of the team is made up of people who “punch and shoot good.” Their dynamic is predictably antagonistic and quippy, though without any real commitment to the pain of these characters that could catalyze them into a family unit. Remember near the end of “Guardians of the Galaxy” when Star Lord (Chris Pratt) tells his cohorts that they are “losers,” as in people who have lost stuff, and for once they have a chance to care and save something from being destroyed. It’s a good scene. “Thunderbolts*” tries for something similar through the name “Thunderbolts” itself, a reference to Yelena’s Pee Wee soccer team that never won a game but kept trying. That’s a good idea, there’s heart and warmth in that concept. But the movie, having little interest in investing us with the rest of this team, leaves it lying on the sidewalk to be ogled at like an earthworm drying out in the noonday sun. As a team movie, “Thunderbolts*” is tepid at best, but in truth, that’s not the reason to go. The reason to see “Thunderbolts*”, as is the reason to see almost any movie she’s in, is Florence Pugh.
The movie opens with Yelena standing on the edge of the second-tallest building in the world, ready to jump. Pugh’s voice-over describes a malaise of boredom and depression that feels universal. She’s tired of simply going to work (killing people) only to return home and do it all over again the next day, a lonely life of cheap vodka and murder, while the memory of her dead Avenger sister looms like an impenetrable shadow. There’s a relatability to Yelena’s mental state that I almost feel like was an afterthought. Depression, overcoming past trauma, and the crippling fear of being your worst self is the thematic spine of “Thunderbolts*,” though it’s efforts to expand that guiding principle to characters other than Yelena and a medical test subject gone wrong named Bob (Lewis Pullman) bear little fruit. At least Pugh has the gravitational pull to synthesize the film’s warring interests and borderline cadaverous visual palette into a meal that feels substantive and personal, though in truth, any Marvel movie feels about as personalized as getting a hug from an industrial washing machine, or a Mangler in Stephen King parlance.
There is a scene late in the movie where Red Guardian, David Harbour, in a delightful performance as everyone’s favorite former Soviet super soldier turned annoying Dad, gives a “Star Lord” style speech to Yelena when it looks like the odds are stacked too high against them. It’s a sweet scene, one that Harbour and Pugh play very well, of a father with little brains but some wisdom helping his daughter see the light that she brings to his world. In the warmth of this scene, there is a spark of something fresh for an MCU that could rediscover its greatness if it would only quit navel-gazing and chart a narrative future built on characters that matter to us. We want to love these jump-suited weirdos, if only we are given reason to. The ball is in your court, Marvel. We want to show up to these movies, and people will continue to do so. I’m simply begging for you to give us a reason to care.
“Thunderbolts*” is one of the better MCU installments of recent memory, though anyone without a working knowledge of the universe’s recent side quests might be left wondering where Thor and Doctor Strange are. But if you’re of a mind to dip your toe back into the land of mutants and monsters, it’s as enjoyable a recent entry point as any. Come for Florence Pugh’s star power, stay for the after-credits sequence.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Thunderbolts*” is showing at The Broad Theater and Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
