The last few Marvel movies I attempted to watch, I almost clicked off due to disengagement. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Ant Man: Quantamania, The Marvels, Captain America: Brave New World, they all felt unexciting and didn’t appeal to me. The stakes were unrealistic, the writing felt ‘cheap’ in a sense, the plots were unbalanced, and the characters felt distant and frustrating, especially after what they did to Wanda Maximoff after all the character development in my still favourite piece of Marvel media, Wandavision. As well as this, a lot of the buildup towards Kang - especially in the Antman film - was sadly going to be unusable due to the controversies surrounding Jonathan Major.
All this to say, after not watching Marvel movies out of disengagement, Thunderbolts* was an unexpectedly fresh and exciting film. It mimicked the feelings of the original Avengers, whilst still introducing new and exciting elements. It didn’t shy away from the ‘New Marvel’ extravaganza, but it managed to stay grounded in a way that excited me. The Antihero protagonists, whilst still being ‘super’ and - magical, managed to connect with me in a way I hadn’t expected from Marvel in this era. I am pleased to say, I definitely enjoyed watching this film.
Whilst technically this film stars a full team of antiheroes, the Thunderbolts, the movie definitely emotionally centres on Yelena Belova. She’s the one who sorts of keeps the rest of the gang together, serving as the glue between the past-his-prime ‘Red Guardian’ (Alexie Shostakov), the cocky yet vulnerable ‘US Agent’ (John Walker), ‘Ghost’(Ava Starr) - who’s troublesome past leads her to be less cooperative with the rest at the beginning, and finally, Bucky Barnes, ‘The Winter Soldier’, who doesn’t have time for fighting against the system anymore, he wants to create change within the system as a member of the US Congress.
After a stark betrayal by their somewhat shady former boss, CIA leader and CEO of O.X.E, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Belova, Walker and Starr find themselves trapped together, about to be incinerated with the rest of the evidence about de Fontaine’s doings, who’s currently going through an impeachment hearing with congress, they have to work together to escape. But they realise it’s not just them in the room, there’s a new individual, one who appears rather unremarkable but turns up in such a peculiar position. He goes by the name of ‘Bob’.
The film manages to explore the relationships between all the unconventional protagonists and antagonists, in a film where the heroes may not be truly good, however, the villains aren’t truly evil either. It touches on mental health, and the difficulties of living with one’s past, while also still keeping a fair amount of good quality action, without relying on overpowered spells or overused machine weaponry. All to say, , I am very pleasantly surprised with the direction Marvel is going, and I am very keenly awaiting, although still reasonably apprehensive for Avengers: Doomsday, and Secret Wars.