According to what I’ve read, the new movie “Thunderbolts*” is the last movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe “Phase 5”. Personally, I think it would have been better to end that phase on a high note with “Deadpool and Wolverine” last year. Just like how “Captain America Brave New World” set up the new Captain America for future Marvel movies, this movie sets up a new group for future Marvel movies (you may have read recently about the asterisk in the movie title). Also, just like the previous “Captain America Brave New World” movie, most of the characters are former sidekicks or villains that have now been upgraded to the main heroes.
The movie starts with Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) – she’s the sister of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) first seen in the MCU “Black Widow” movie – on yet another assignment. After she finishes it – which includes jumping off the 2nd tallest building in the world (the actress said she flighted for that scene to be in the movie and it’s really her jumping but she had safety lines holding her) she has a quick visit with her father Alexi Shostakov aka Red Guardian (David Harbour) – also Black Widows father. He was also first seen in “Black Widow” – she contacts her boss Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) – once again first seen in “Black Widow” if you watched the end credit scenes – to get her next assignment.
She doesn’t know that Valentina and her assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan) – I believe this is her first Marvel movie – are in front of the US Congress – including new congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) – originally known as the Winter Soldier and was initially the villain in the MCU movie “Captain America – The Winter Soldier”. The US Congress is investigating all of Valentina’s activities. So, Valentina is planning on getting rid of all the evidence of her activities – including Yelena.
Yelena next assignment is getting into a top-secret underground vault and eliminating any intruders. When she arrives, she finds 3 other intruders. John Walker (Wyatt Russell) – originally seen in the Marvel TV show “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” where he was the “official” Captain America for a short time – Ava Starr aka Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) – originally seen in the Marvel movie “Ant-Man and the Wasp” where she was a villain – and Antonia Dreykov aka “Taskmaster” – originally seen in the Marvel movie “Black Widow” where she was a villain. The 4 people soon realize that they were each assigned to kill another person. In case they didn’t complete their assignments, Valentina also has a backup plan. Everyone now locked in the vault will be incinerated.
Fortunately, Bob (Lewis Pullman) – this is his first Marvel movie – mysteriously shows up. He just sort of appears. No one knows how he got there but he helps the others escape from the vault and reach the ground level and then he helps the 3 survivors (I won’t spoil who doesn’t come out of the vault) get away from the group of killers assigned to kill anything or anyone who leaves the vault. After they escape, they’re assisted with a “semi-bulletproof” limo driven by Yelena’s father Alexi, and then by Bucky Barnes. The whole group – which Alexi names “Thunderbolts” after a team that Yelena was on when she was young that never won a game – then go to the former Avengers building (which Yelena now owns) to confront her. However, Valentina rescued Bob, who is more than he appears. Although he considers the 3 people that he helped escape the vault his friends, he has been fooled by Valentina, given a costume, and named “The Sentry”. The “Thunderbolts*” must save the city from “The Sentry”.
The good news is that there is some good acting in this movie, especially Florence Pugh who seems to be designated the leader of the group, but there is also some bad acting including Julia Louis-Dreyfus who seems to be doing an impersonation of Cruella de Vil (from the animated “101 Dalmatians”). For some reason, her hair even looks like Cruella’s.
However, there isn’t much plot. Except for the opening scene of Yelena’s first assignment, I believe the whole movie takes place in less than 24 hours. The first night the group meets each other and then they escape from the underground vault. Then during the day, the group confronts Valentina and Bob at the Avengers building and end up trying to save the whole city. It’s somewhat similar to “The Avengers” (2012) where the group of heroes forms the Avengers and then they fight to save the city. In this movie, Mel mentions she was a teenager when the Avengers saved the city.
That’s where the comparison to “The Avengers” ends. Compared to that movie, there is almost no fighting in this movie – except the opening scenes where Yelena fights a bunch of people during her first assignment. They can’t really fight much because, as Yelena says in one scene, “none of us have powers, we can only punch and shoot”, but punching and shooting won’t help them beat “The Sentry”. In some ways, there’s more “group therapy” than fighting.
As I said at the start. The main reason for this movie is to introduce the new group which will be seeing more of in future Marvel movies. Marvel actually announced the real name of the group on some advertisements. If you want to know the new group name, you can look it up on the internet. I even mention the name in my recent “movie news”. Other than that, there is some good acting and a couple funny scenes but not enough to recommend this movie (unless there’s some “easter eggs” I’m not aware of because I don’t read the comic books for the characters in the movie).
Overall: 6 out of 10
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 