Review: Thunderbolts (The New Avengers?), and Marvel's return to form

Marvel's recent run hasn't lived up to its glory days, but how does this new venture shape up with new and familiar faces? Jay Davies Reviews.

With a fresh 88% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a solid enough opening at both domestic and international box offices, Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts has splashed onto the scene with universal fanfare as a unique and refreshing take on cinematic cape antics. A triumph in live-action comic book storytelling!

But as if I were an underpaid Twitter employee sifting through the trenches of political misinformation, I’m gonna have to provide some additional context here to ink a full picture of the circumstances of this blockbuster’s release...

Starting back in 2008 with the release of Iron Man, the Marvel Cinematic Universe as both a franchise and brand was seemingly an infinite money glitch for parent company Walt Disney. For 11 years straight, the company enjoyed hit after hit, with multiple billion-dollar entries and an almost universal presence in pop culture consensus — a feat achieved by no other.

This eventually climaxed in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, with the majority of films and subsequent television shows released after from the studio being met with middling reception and box office results.

To put it bluntly, anything released under Marvel Studios of a quality reaching passable is leagues ahead of the majority of the studio’s output from the past 5 years or so.

So now we can return to our scheduled programming. Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* is the 36th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the culmination of multiple different plot elements introduced throughout the franchise since 2021.

Directed by Jake Schreier, the film assembles a gaggle of morally dubious characters like Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and newcomer Bob (Lewis Pullman).

These individuals are coerced into a perilous mission by the manipulative CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), confronting both external threats and their own troubled pasts.

Look! It’s the whole gang! Staring up in despair at an all-powerful foe. Absolutely classic. Photo: Marvel

Something people grew to love over the early years of the MCU was the wide variety of likeable characters bouncing between films; in a similar fashion to the comic book source material, half the fun was seeing how characters from completely different backgrounds interacted and worked together. I believe this film’s success is due in large part to Marvel Studios remembering this key ingredient to their initial success. Simply put, the dynamics here just work. Everyone here is working at top form.

Every character, whether previously beloved or not, gets the time to prove themselves worthy of a prominent position in the MCU. Even characters like Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost, a forgettable secondary villain from 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, get the chance to reinvent themselves as not only cooperative members of a team, but legitimately likable characters. The echoes of 2012’s The Avengers are fucking palpable.

Florence Pugh, in particular, continues to stun as Black Widow Yelena Belova. It’s nice to see

Marvel Studios takes advantage of her talent since her first appearance as the character in 2021. Pugh has swiftly risen the ranks as one of Hollywood’s premiere stars, and her endlessly lovable celebrity presence pulls the film above a “wait until it comes to streaming” energy.

She also apparently jumped off the second-tallest building in the world for the opening scene, but you know what? I didn’t notice. Even on the IMAX screen, these films continue to suppress feats of the crew with a stylistically bland and claustrophobic composition.

Florence Pugh on set. Photo: Marvel

Without getting into spoilers of course, Lewis Pullman’s Bob arrives on the scene with fucking class, man.

The introduction of an aloof, recovering meth addict into an established family friendly franchise such as the MCU is bold. It isn’t something you’d expect from the standard superhero affair, and I commend the film for its perseverance in delivering real character in an industry grounded by avoiding risk.

But outside of its character work, I can’t really say that Thunderbolts* truly reaches above and beyond its status as a Marvel blockbuster. With the franchise's recent success in mind, I don’t think it’d be anywhere near as praised if it had been released during Marvel’s heyday in the 2010s.

Something I never expected to discuss in a Marvel movie is thematics. While its source material has delved into the depths of the human soul and philosophical conundrums over the past 60 years, the MCU has never been praised for its attention to its themes. So colour me fucking surprised when I left Thunderbolts* pondering it’s exploration of depression.

Does it extend beyond the very safe conclusion of “a problem shared is a problem halved?” No, not particularly. In an almost exact parallel with the film’s audience and their attitude toward these films, our band of misfits are tired of the rigamarole. It’s almost self-aware in how it utilises its thematics.

I can very easily see how an audience tired of the MCU’s output would be pleasantly surprised by an entry reaching beneath a surface level. While it’s brave of Marvel Studios to explore depression, and extra impressive considering how this theme dovetails into the film’s third act, it’s not something that reaches the peaks of other genre films that explore similar issues. Maybe that’s the natural result of the conveyor belt method Marvel Studios uses to produce its films. It’s probably that.

Also, having seen the film opening night in 3D at the IMAX Melbourne (the largest IMAX screen in the southern hemisphere), I can confidently say that the 3D format continues to be inconsequential and should be avoided at all costs. Avoid like the plague. It adds nothing to the theatrical experience, and in this specific case, only darkens the picture of a film that already consists of exclusively greys and browns.

All in all, the film is fine. Just that. Just fine. An entertaining comic book blockbuster with likable characters, palpable stakes, and a newfound attention to its thematics, but not much more. I still hope for a future where these genre films can reach beyond a passable standard on a more regular basis, but I can completely understand why a glass of water would bring audience cheers after a seemingly endless walk through a desert of mediocrity. ‘Nuff said.

RATING: 5/10