Movie Scene: Thundering good fun

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one; a rag-tag bunch of anti-heroes who initially can’t stand each other, come together to vanquish a foe bigger than any of them in order to save the world…

Sounds like DC’s ‘Suicide Squad’, right? Well, actually no as these bunch of losers are Marvel’s version of that aka the ‘Thunderbolts*’.

A bunch of villains cherry-picked from previous Marvel films and TV shows, the Thunderbolts in this iteration (I’ve been assured there’s been others) are Yelena (Florence Pugh) and Red Guardian (David Harbour) from ‘Black Widow’, Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) from ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’, John Walker (Wyatt Russell) from ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ and newcomer ‘Bob’ (Lewis Pullman), while Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) makes an all-too-brief cameo.

The gang, who perform black-ops for Valentina Allegra De Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), come together as a result of De Fontaine’s attempt to kill them all in order to clear up her shady dealings. The plan fails so the gang, aided by Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) go after Valentina for revenge.

With none of Marvel’s ‘big-hitters’ about, I have to admit that buzz for ‘Thunderbolts*’ was hard to come by, especially with Phase 5 being less-than-stellar. However, as we kick off Phase 6, ‘Thunderbolts*’ puts things back on a decent enough footing.

At its core, the film is Yelena’s story; broken after sister Natasha’s death, Yelena wanders the world killing rings round her and, once that’s done, drinks to forget the people she’s killed before doing it all again, unable to escape the red in her ledger. She is the unofficial leader and driving force in the film and Pugh is excellent at it.

For the action fans there’s plenty to enjoy; director Jake Schrier keeps things going at a brisk pace, using a script written by Eric Pearson and Jennifer Cato very well; full of bickering between the group with good action set-pieces which aren’t CGIed to within an inch of their lives and a great deal of humour, mostly delivered by Harbour’s bumbling but likeable Red Guardian.

‘Thunderbolts*’ has strong emotional beats, with Yelena and Bob at the centre of it all, although Walker is given some backstory too, dealing with generational trauma and how to be a better person while dealing with past mistakes.

This is especially relevant to Bob when it’s revealed he is Sentry/The Void (think Superman/Brightburn) in the third act. This leads up to a final fight in New York City which is much less crashy-bashy than previous MCU films and goes a bit Spike Jonze/Michel Gondry in places.

It’s a strong enough ending and satisfying although it might infuriate those hoping for a massive dust-up when it turns out, the whole thing could have been avoided if someone had just given Bob a hug.

Performances are mixed – Pugh, Pullman, Harbour and Dreyfus are great and do most of the heavy lifting, while Russell and John-Kamen bring up the rear with underwritten roles.

Not the thunderous start to Phase 6 people may want, but not a film to bolt away from either.