You’re probably going to hear a lot about how Thunderbolts*, the new Marvel movie with the mysterious asterisk, is all about mental health. But Thunderbolts* is only about mental health to the extent that me writing the words “mental health” four times in this opening paragraph is about mental health. As with a lot of the movie, Thunderbolts* gestures at ideas that could have been deeper, smarter, and funnier. Instead, like the team in the title, it’s just good enough to get the job done.
Directed by Jake Schreier from a script by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, Thunderbolts* stars an array of actors who have previously appeared in MCU projects. The twist this time is that, for the most part, they’re black ops operatives, loners, and as the movie repeatedly explains, losers, versus the quippy, self-righteous superheroes we’re used to watching on screen. Those losers include several characters from Black Widow, including Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), John Walker (Wyatt Russell) from Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) from Ant-Man and the Wasp, and the one real multiple-movie character, Bucky Barnes, aka The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan).
Oh, and also, there’s Bob (Lewis Pullman), who the ads have mostly stopped hiding is also an all-powerful comic book character called The Sentry as well as his villainous opposite, The Void. While there are — on top of the aforementioned characters — a lot of characters in the movie, Thunderbolts* is mostly about Bob’s journey to the exclusion of almost everyone else, with the exception of Pugh’s Yelena.
The real villain of the film, though, is Julia-Louis Dreyfus’s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who seems to be having a much better time in this movie than she did in her shoehorned scenes in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. We first meet de Fontaine (don’t forget the “de” she helpfully reminds other characters) being grilled by Congress due to her involvement in O.X.E., an organization doing off-the-grid military experimentation to help Valentina try to create her own superheroes. In a wild bit of real-world synergy, Dreyfus’s character directly parallels Tulsi Gabbard, who was recently named Director of Intelligence, now has the same white stripe in her hair as Valentina, and even was recently also grilled by Congress. It’s actually unfortunate that Thunderbolts* seems only interested in Congressional hearings as a plot device to motivate superhero shenanigans, because Dreyfus tangling with Wendell Pierce’s congressman, as well as current congressman Bucky Barnes, are by far the most relevant and compelling parts of the movie.
Instead, it’s all about how these loser loners get together and form a team. Like with Captain America: Brave New World, which this picks right up on — Valentina notes the President recently turned into a red rage monster in her hearings — Thunderbolts* is less about the current political moment than pushing the idea that working together can solve most problems. Like, for example, poor mental health (see, there it is again).
What Thunderbolts* does have going for it is a game cast of top-tier performers who also seem to be having a good time, despite the general depression of the characters. At the top of that list is Pugh, an actress who manages to make a full meal out of a small smile or a look. Not only does Pugh eke laughs out of the smallest gesture, but her empathy towards the other actors brings the best out in them, too. Yelena is on her own journey motivated by the death of her sister, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) — who, to temper expectations, does not show up in this movie — as well as the malaise she’s feeling about the rinse and repeat of constantly killing people and blowing things up. She also has the closest connections to most of the characters, particularly Red Guardian, her adoptive father.
Harbour also gets to find some nuance in his Yakov Smirnoff impression, thanks to a late-in-the-game motivational speech. Russell thankfully gets to show off more range and charm as the murderous replacement Captain America he played on Disney+, with a jerk character more in line with his comic book counterpart. John-Kamen is always a welcome presence, but seems mostly to be there to provide a character whose “powers” are not punching or shooting people. And Stan is also always welcome, and provides the most thrilling action beats. But as the movie points out, most of his character arc has been settled in previous MCU flicks. There’s not much for Stan to do other than blow s**t up and kick a**.
In fact, other than Yelena and Bob, most of the characters are gestures, rather than fully fleshed-out arcs. By the final act, most of the team is off-screen entirely, and don’t even get any sort of emotional resolution, other than the two aforementioned characters. The movie is a brisk two hours and six minutes, but it’s the rare MCU film that could have used a little more time with the rest of the team so we understand who they are, why they’re there, and then bring those arcs to a close. Instead, the latter part of the movie seems to rush on through all that to set up the next several movies to come, rather than finishing up the movie we’re watching.
That’s the least of its sins, though, as despite the general lack of character arcs, the script seems to be built for viewers scrolling on their phones. Nearly every ten minutes, characters repeat the information about who their characters are, and what they just did, then add one or two pieces of info. There’s a utility there since the large cast needs to be brought up to speed as more people join or clash with the team. But at the same time, I wish movies were not written for that guy from Memento. Most of us don’t have anterograde amnesia, and hearing characters shout their biographies at each other is not a substitute for actual emotional growth. That’s what Wikipedia pages are for.
The movie is also of the “extremely dark” quality, and while part of that is intentional — Yelena notes early in the film that she feels like there’s an emotional void in her, and guess who they end up fighting at the end of the movie — it does make things hard to see. There is a lovely sequence late in the film that plays better to this idea, as Yelena tries to talk to Bob, and as she breaks through to him, light starts to come back into the room. But the payoff is certainly not worth the setup, as I would like to see the actors on screen, if possible, rather than a dark, muddy wash. Just my two cents.
And the less said about the CGI models, the better. The design of The Void (which again, has been revealed in commercials and trailers), with Lewis Pullman all in black with pinprick white eyes, is disturbing and well done. But a fight between the Sentry and the team switches liberally from the actors to CGI and largely distracts from what otherwise could be a solid fight scene. It stands in direct contrast with an earlier fight scene set in an underground bunker between most of the main cast that is physical, visceral, and well-staged… Once the superpowers come in late in the film, it feels shoddy and rushed.
That brings us back to the whole “mental health” thing. Without getting too heavy into spoilers for the film, the movie’s gestures towards depression, suicidal tendencies, and dissociative identity disorder would work better if the solutions to all of those were more complicated or nuanced — i.e., there are no solutions, but instead a lifetime of work and support. Instead, those gestures fill the same hole as Ant-Man and the Wasp‘s half-hearted attempts to deal with chronic pain and disability. On that (Ghost’s chronic pain), Thunderbolts* takes the football dropped by that previous movie and proceeds to nearly ignore it entirely, other than as a brief punchline. With mental health issues there are no easy answers, but the “solution” Thunderbolts* presents is muddy and unformed. Is it good to see these sorts of things represented on screen? Sure. Representation is important. But like how watching Andor isn’t a substitute for taking real political action, having a character with serious mental issues treated mostly as a goofy joke undercuts what could have been a powerful message about seeking help from others — and more importantly, professionals. You can’t cure mental illness by joining a sports team, and solving a lifetime of manic-depression can’t be cured by joining a superhero team, like the movie suggests.
Heck, there’s even a more thoughtful take on similar mental health issues in a Marvel property that also deals with dissociative identity disorder, hits on the same basic themes at greater length, and even shares some of the visual trippiness Thunderbolts* attempts to tackle in the final act. That would be Legion, which ran for three excellent seasons on FX, and despite the multiverse of madness the MCU has been playing around with, thus far, Marvel Studios has otherwise ignored. Perhaps it’s for the best, as Legion stands on its own — but the ambition and success rate of the small screen counterpart stands in stark contrast to the comparatively modest ambitions of the big screen team.
Thunderbolts* clearly wants to evoke the same feelings as the broken losers who can’t work together but are forced to form a family vibe from things like James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. And this latter movie laudably understands that the resolution needs to be focused on emotions, rather than punching depression into submission. But it only takes it halfway there, using previous movies and TV shows as shortcuts for character development, jokes that elicit giggles rather than outright guffaws, and action that is solid but unspectacular. The plot, too, is like a straight line, going from point A to point B with nary a real twist. Even the — sigh — heavily hyped asterisk lands with a thud, thanks to a curious reveal that not only undercuts the seeming point of the movie, but is also immediately undercut itself by the end credits scene.
Is Thunderbolts* a bad movie? Not necessarily. It’s certainly not the Frankenstein’s monster that was Brave New World. But like a lot of the more recent MCU movies, Thunderbolts* is just good enough to get the job done. Hey, at least they’re talking about mental health, though.
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