Thunderbolts* Delivers on it's Promises

Marvel’s Thunderbolts* had a lot riding on it. After the critical failure of the previous Marvel film, Captain America: Brave New World, the MCU needed something that would turn heads. Luckily, Thunderbolts* was precisely that. 

After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap, seven disillusioned castoffs;

Yelena Boleva (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian/Alexi Shotstakov (David Harbour), Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Ghost/Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen), John Walker (Wyatt Russel), Taskmaster/Antonia Dreykov (Olga Kurylenko), and Bob Reynolds/Sentry (Lewis Pullman) are all inadvertently brought together by the actions of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). In doing so, they will confront unresolved issues from the deepest corners of their past. 

There is no doubt that Marvel put all their apples in the Thunderbolts* basket, with the amount of promotion they’ve done being equal to that of the promotion for Wicked, and they should. The production team behind this film is everything worth bragging about. 

First, we have director Jake Schreier, who worked on the Netflix series Beef. Writers Eric Pearson (Transformers One) and Joanna Calo (Beef) penned the screenplay. Cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo also handled the cinematography for The Green Night, starring Dev Patel. Harry Yoon and Angela Catanzaro edited the film; Yoon previously worked on the MCU film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) and with Schreier on Beef. The experimental band Son Lux, composed of Ryan Lott, Rafiq Bhatia, and Ian Chang, composed the soundtrack, which they also provided for Everything Everywhere All at Once. 

Forget the Avengers, forget the Thunderbolts*, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and all of them; this is the real dream team right here.

The cinematography and direction stand out today, definitely a “marvel” to behold (that’s all, I promise). Marvel has been promoting those scenes of the whole team in the car in the desert, and it does look as great as you’d expect. But know this: that Molotov cocktail has not left my mind since I saw it the first time. 

Even though this is a team-up film, Florence Pugh’s Yelena is the main character. That is a relief, considering my initial perception was that they would make Bucky Barnes the de facto leader, given his close affiliation with the Avengers and other Marvel circles. It’s just barely enough that I don't feel like it's all Yelena, but it did get close to feeling too much about her. I also would've liked to see a glimpse into Ava Starr’s mind, considering that her character is the one we haven't seen in the longest time. Considering the film's ending, I hope there will be more of the Ghost to see. 

A small section of Marvel fans felt that a certain character was wronged for their early demise. To that I say, it is what it is. In such an expansive universe, some minor characters are gonna have to be the sacrificial lambs. That's why The Suicide Squad (2021) started with a huge chunk of characters to kill off as their inciting incident; it's in the name.

Speaking of the ending of the Thunderbolts*, let’s get into it. Considering that all the Marvel Entertainment accounts have spoiled in after the film's first week in theaters, I won’t try to hide it either. 

At the end of the Thunderbolts*, it's revealed that they aren't precisely the Thunderbolts, but the New Avengers, a twist that initially astounded me. As a Marvel fan and occasional comic book reader, I needed a moment to adjust to this significant change. But the more I thought about it, the more perfect of an ending it is. 

The twist ending of Thunderbolts* have be the same chocked reaction as seeing Spider-Man being unmasked at the end of Spider-man: Far From Home, it’s a twist that could upheave everything in the MCU, but most importantly, change everything in the lives of our heroes, and going into whatever Avengers: Doomsday is going to be, the MCU was really needing that type of narrative conflict to build dynamics. 

The third act could've used, I won’t say a battle, but the sequence of the Thunderbolts saving people during the catastrophe would've been more enjoyable if it had been a bit longer, However, I can understand that when all the past action sequences were alot of jump kick and punch, you would want to go for something little more emotionally intense rather than physically.

Plus, and I mean this in all sincerity, it’s nice to see the power of friendship save the day. At its root, that’s really what team-up movies should be about, realizing that despite the circumstances of the individuals, they aren’t so different after all.

With the Marvel Cinematic Universe in its fifth phase, critics start to wonder how much they need to know about the characters before seeing the next Marvel movie. It's all "What do I have to watch to understand?". And even though I was an avid Marvel fan and had seen every Marvel film, I still didn't understand that. Sure, if you watch Iron Man 2, you should've watched Iron Man first.

Still, in the circumstances of now, when the MCU will be mixing and matching characters across films, viewers should go in with the understanding that they don't need to know everything about characters that were shown in previous films; whatever you do need to know, trust that the film will tell you.

Even though all of these characters are from various previous Marvel projects, they don't need the huge lore dumps. Additionally, information, such as John Walker's fall from grace, is communicated seamlessly without detracting too much from the main narrative.

Overall, I would give Thunderbolts* an 8.5/10. It's a fast-paced film, at times a little too fast, but it's not overcrowded with too much. Instead, it's a streamlined plot that allows the characters to showcase their chemistry. If you haven't seen it, expect a fun, easy-to-follow adventure featuring characters with great chemistry, which unfolds into a refreshing, heartfelt tale of redemption and belonging in otherwise grim circumstances.