About the film (courtesy of Marvel Studios):
Marvel Studios assembles an unconventional team of antiheroes — Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster and John Walker. After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, these disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts. Will this dysfunctional group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and unite as something much more before it’s too late?
Marvel Studios has had a pretty rough go at it, relatively speaking, in recent years. Ever since the studio played its “Endgame” and then could find “No Way Home”, the mega-franchise has been pedestrian at best with movie features that would have been better served on the Disney+ platform, and Disney+ series that maybe should have been aired on its free local ABC affiliates. But just like their intellectual comic book properties, there’s always more battles to be waged.
Emmy winning director, Jake Schreier (Netflix’s Beef), brings a refreshing and more importantly, FUN, approach to breathing some much needed vitality into the flailing franchise. Thunderbolts*, on the surface, would be a tough sale to serve as a beacon of hope for fans to cling to hopefully get to brighter days. That said, Marvel Studios seems to be banking hard on just that, so let’s talk about this latest gamble.
Make no qualms about it, Thunderbolts* is a dark horse with very long odds to be a sure thing. I mean with a collection of characters that never had a feature movie to themselves, what’s the chances of this experiment actually working? Funny thing. The same was said more than a decade ago when a film was released with NO anchor characters in it that no one, outside of the comic book faithful, were familiar with. That film, of course, was Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and it went to do great things, including branching out (Groot pun!) into all types of movies and shows.
Thunderbolts* is pretty supporting cast-centric in its character pool – Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), John Walker (Wyatt Russell) and Bob (Lewis Pullman). Yeah, this is who I dreamt of propelling us towards Avengers: Doomsday (2026)…
Well I’m here to tell you that Thunderbolts* is an awfully fun time in the cinema. Marvel Studios seemingly took a step back and return to doing the things that have made these movies so enjoyable in the past. There’s action, heartfelt drama, comedy and the best part, a visible and obvious path towards building something much larger than itself. All of these odds and ends pieces fit well enough together to make a solid structure. And while The Fantastic Four: First Steps is not the next chronological step towards the next Avengers film, I am now eager to see intriguing content it might bring to the table July 25.
It’s funny how expectations can work both against and for a film. It’ll be interesting to see how fans end up feeling about Thunderbolts* having had their hopes dashed so many times in recent memory. If you give this underdog an honest try, you might come away pleasantly surprised. I know I did.
Check out Thunderbolts* in theaters everywhere starting Friday, May 2nd. And if you’re super eager, you can grab a ticket to early showings starting Thursday afternoon. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is back, baby! Oh and here’s the obligatory reminder: there is one mid-credit and one post-credit scene so time your potty breaks accordingly.
