Florence Pugh’s Yelena is bored. Tired of killing people for the CIA, she pleads to director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) to give her life another purpose. De Fontaine agrees, provided that she destroys some evidence for her, materials that are hidden far away in the mountains. When she gets there, she is accosted by John Walker (Wyatt Russell) and former nemesis Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). They enter into a brawl where Taskmaster is killed, when Bob (Lewis Pullman) falls out of a container. He’s a lab experiment, which concerns Yelena, as they the three of them – plus Ava Starr, a fellow mercenary capable of turning invisible – are about to be incarcerated. Reluctantly, they team up under the moniker Thunderbolts, in the hope of uncovering Valentina’s treacherous plan.
A meagre nine years after Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016), Marvel have opted to release their version of a rag-tag troupe of anti-heroes, but where Ayer’s film was rich in gallows humour and rich entendre, Jake Schreier’s work is a plodding, po-faced spectacle devoid of originality. True, it opens with a spectacular stunt – Pugh actually jumped off the Merdeka building in Kuala Lumpur, in real time – but most of the work relies on quips and CGI effects that have been over-used in the comic book medium.
If catch-phrases are a symbol of lazy writing, then Thunderbolts* might as well have been written by an AI software, because the work is littered with zingers. David Harbour seemingly had one direction as Red Ghost: employ every Soviet stereotype known to man. Therefore, the Red Ghost is a vodka-swirling, emotion-spitting behemoth who is confused for a Father Christmas lookalike. Pullman’s Bob, meanwhile, has to sulk, as he contemplates “The Void”, no hammy metaphor, but a plotpoint. Scarred by his experiments, Bob turns into a powerful Übermensch, a Nietzschean creation equal parts god and monster. Even Valentina fails to control her creation, and pushes him to the end of his limits.
Despite the appearance of Sebastian Stan, who played Donald Trump in The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, 2024), Thunderbolts* makes little attempt to criticise the incumbent US president, even though the film is ripe for it. If there’s a message in the feature, it’s that the CIA has to resort to radical tactics to ensure global safety, a line of thought that will not shock anyone over the age of 11. Stan, a formidable actor, is wasted here as The Winter Soldier, as he smoulders endlessly at the camera.
Annoyingly, director Schreier fails to capitalise on another intriguing plotline. He has John Walker, the embodiment of the all-American superhero, and a Russian equivalent, Red Ghost, but there’s hardly a passing comment made about US-USSR relations. Instead, the focus is on the gadgets, gizmos and throwaway puns, robbing the work of any worthwhile resonance or nuance. At least Dreyfus enjoys her role as a politician, wickedly cackling like an Empress wielding power beyond any mortal reach. She’s performing in a pantomime; more’s the pity the others aren’t.
The abundance of green screen robs the viewer of any palpable danger. The stunt on top of the world’s second building feels life-threatening, because it was. It’s harder to discern a visceral thrill when an actor throws themselves onto a safety mat that is altered in post-production. That it lacks the knowing humour Ayer brought to Suicide Squad (2016), or James Gunn delivered on Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2 (2017), only makes it duller and less artfully fulfilling.
Climaxing with a twist that was hinted at in the title, Thunderbolts* is also guilty of setting up future chapters in the MCU, often at the sacrifice of the movie being projected on the big screen. The most successful comic-book spectacles tend to be the ones that can be watched on their own terms; free from agenda, or world-building. Thunderbolts* lacks the confidence to create its own environment, which might explain its dullness.
Thunderbolts* is in cinemas on Thursday, May 1st.
