Directed by Jake Schreier (Netflix’s Beef, Showtime’s Kidding) and written by Eric Pearson (Transformers One, Black Widow) and Joanna Calo (The Bear, Bojack Horseman), Thunderbolts* documents the emptiness surrounding Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) as she goes through the motions while working for the Ox Group led by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).
Yelena still hasn’t recovered from Natasha/Black Widow’s death and is sick of killing people and doing villainous tasks for money. After a visit with her father figure Alexai Shostakov (David Harbour), Yelena decides to go straight and attempt to be a hero.
Unfortunately for her, de Fontaine is currently being investigated by the government and is on the verge of being impeached. Yelena’s last job is just an excuse for de Fontaine to tie up all her loose ends and appear innocent. Yelena finds herself trapped in a giant incinerator with U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and a man plagued with memory loss named Bob (Lewis Pullman).
Thunderbolts* is a strange superhero film for a variety of reasons. The antihero dynamic already gives the film a dysfunctional Guardians of the Galaxy/Suicide Squad appeal, where a bunch of outcasts find refuge and redemption by working together as a team. But the film’s writing is interesting because Thunderbolts* doesn’t feature traditional character development. What these characters share is loss.
In a reveal that is likely not difficult to figure out, there’s more to Bob than Thunderbolts* lets on. Without fully spoiling the direction the film goes in with the character, Bob is able to see someone’s memories with physical touch. While this results in some interesting reveals from certain character’s pasts, it never really gets too deep even when Bob decides to share a bit more about what he’s gone through.
With Bob’s ability to enter people’s minds at will, the finale of Thunderbolts* has an Inception kind of element to it, but is more of a battle with inner demons than it is an all out CGI slugfest. The Thunderbolts* crash through dream barriers that alter physics while transitioning to whichever character is taking the lead in the sequence (the film typically goes back and forth between Yelena and Bob).
But the uniting of these characters still rides on trauma and loss. Yelena is searching for something to fill the emptiness inside of her. Alexei hasn’t been Red Guardian since the events of Black Widow and now drives a red limo for a job. He has completely lost whatever remained of his already dwindling super-soldier status.
Ghost no longer struggles to control her powers or her molecular status, but she does struggle with finding a purpose in this film. Apart from fighting and bickering with everyone, Ghost doesn’t add much to the film.
U.S. Agent is in denial about no longer being Captain America. He acts like he has everything going for him, but has initially lost everything after the events of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is on the verge of losing everything she’s been trying to build. Bob has always been alone. He’s never had friends and the void that has left inside him is quite literally a plot device for later in the film.
Bucky (Sebastian Stan) has been dabbling in Congress, but he’s kind of floundered around since Sam Wilson became the new Captain America. He’s not so secretly a part of the de Fontaine impeachment investigation and is searching for some sort of concrete evidence the only way The Winter Soldier can.
The film’s entertainment value is mostly invested in how unlikely this group of outcasts and shoehorned “heroes” are when they’re all trapped together in the same building. They initially start off being too stubborn to work together and it’s only once they learn how flawed the other costumed individuals are around them do they start to actually make a decent team.
There isn’t a ton of depth to Thunderbolts*, but it’s fun for what it is and is much more enjoyable than Captain America: Brave New World. The film is mostly setting up a new Avengers-like team for the next phase of the MCU although Sam Wilson’s Captain America is doing something similar. The film is purely worth seeing for Bob. The character has serious potential and Lewis Pullman has a clueless charm in his performance that coincides with one of the most powerful characters in the MCU.
Thunderbolts* is loaded with ass-kicking awesomeness. Florence Pugh is outstanding and Bob is the coolest character to come along in the MCU in a long, long time. Antiheroes are finally fun again.
