Mini Film Review – Thunderbolts*

I have just watched Thunderbolts*; and it was pretty good! Directed by Jake Schreier, and starring Florence Pugh, Olga Kurylenko, Wyatt Russell and David Harbour; Thunderbolts* is a superhero movie which brings together the ‘antihero/supervillain/superhero’ team known as Thunderbolts, so they can take down a new villain, who has created a new hero, who might actually be a villain…or both…or perhaps even neither! So far, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been broken down into two distinct saga’s: The Infinity Saga, and The Multiverse Saga. But what could the next saga be? Well, given the last two releases, I firmly believe we are now in the Investigative Thriller Saga. It may not be as creative a name as the other two, but both Captain America: Brave New World, and Thunderbolts* find themselves in this strange narrative loop, which involves not telling the audience who the big villain is, until the final act. Marvel films in the past never shyed away from pointing out who the big villain was, or at least leaving a strong hint of who it was, within the first hour. But both Captain America: Brave New World, and Thunderbolts*; don’t do that! In Thunderbolts* case, we have a group of heroes who aren’t actually heroes, doing work for a shady character who looks like they’re a major villain, who tries to cover up her past dealings with these characters; who in turn find some strange but pleasant guy, who is the result of some experiment to create a new superhero, but who in turn isn’t exactly stable. So the villian is actually…who? I really don’t know! No seriously, who is it? As far as I can tell this film doesn’t really have one (I was lead to believe via the trailers that it was going to be Taskmaster, or was it Taskmaster all along…I really don’t know). Basically what this film is trying to say (much like in most Disney films which suggest you can be absolutely anything you want to be and more) is that anyone could be a hero, or a villain; it’s your choice, so Don’t Trust Anyone!?

OK, that conclusion was a bit cynical/sarcastic; but you can sort of see the picture. They’ve secretly become thrillers. You don’t know who anyone is, or what they’re purpose is (or if it was a bad idea not to avoid watching Eternals). They are still decently easy to follow, but yeah, it’s like they lost the scriptwriters manual or something. But whilst the plot is a rather confusing pile of potentially good ideas; on the whole it was a very enjoyable film. Perhaps even one of the best MCU films in a long while. Plus the ending highlights the deep drowning despair that loneliness can be, as well as the real ecstatic emotional energy finding a great group of friends can also be. Although I can’t help but wonder if the post-credits scene rather retcons the entire film!