‘Thunderbolts*’ review: aggy antiheroes make Marvel fun again

Thunderbolts*, the 36th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), begins boldly. The camera pans to the world’s second tallest building, Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur before lovable Black Widow assassin Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) jumps off. It’s a stunt worthy of Tom Cruise that Pugh, ever the savvy saleswoman, says she begged Marvel bosses to agree to.

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But, when the credits roll on Thunderbolts* two hours later, Pugh’s derring-do won’t be the thing that sticks in your mind. Right from the start, this coolly confident blockbuster locks into a consistent tone: it’s an absolute blast laced with darkness.

The premise is pretty simple: when a motley crew of gifted misfits are sent into the CIA’s secret vault, they think they’re trying to neutralise a deadly threat. But actually, the agency’s conniving director Valentina Allegra De Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) wants them all dead.

However, these antiheroes show more camaraderie than Valentina anticipated. To extract themselves from the vault, disillusioned assassin Yelena, shapeshifting cipher Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen) and disgraced former-Captain America John Walker (Wyatt Russell) join forces with the mysterious Bob (Lewis Pullman), an emotionally damaged drifter who doesn’t know why he’s down there.

Bob is actually the most powerful of the lot. At a low ebb, he signed up for an experimental medical programme designed to turn mere mortals into superheroes. Valentina didn’t think it had worked, but when Bob starts displaying incredible gifts including the ability to fly, she takes him under her wing. 

It would be a stretch to call anything that happens next in Thunderbolts* restrained. Director Jake Schreier, whose previous credits include the riotously entertaining TV series Beef, steps up to the Marvel mantle with some scintillating set-pieces including a road chase that brings super-soldier Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) into the fold.

But crucially, the screenplay by The Bear showrunner Joanna Calo and Marvel veteran Eric Pearson avoids the pitfalls of lesser MCU efforts: it’s not overstuffed with peripheral characters and doesn’t get bogged down by convoluted plot developments. Thunderbolts* is also properly funny. Reprising his role from 2021’s Black Widow, Stranger Things‘ David Harbour is terrific as Red Guardian, a shonky super-soldier who craves a fatherlike relationship with Yelova and names the crew “Thunderbolts”. He’s matched for laughs by Louis-Dreyfus, who chews the CGI-enhanced scenery in a thoroughly satisfying way.

There’s also some emotional depth here. No one comes to a superhero movie expecting a nuanced portrayal of mental health, and Thunderbolts* doesn’t really offer one, but Bob’s backstory involving an abusive father doesn’t feel tokenistic either. There’s empathy for Pullman’s flawed superhero even when he falters.

By the end, even the clunky-looking asterisk in the film’s title makes sense. Thunderbolts* doesn’t so much reinvent the wheel as remember what put the wheels on this bandwagon in the first place: an epic blend of thrills, spills and psychological ills. It’s the most fun the MCU’s been in years.

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