Thunderbolts* (a review with spoilers)
Ham-handed metaphors for mental illness aside, I rather enjoyed Thunderbolts* - the asterisk is part of the title, a bit of unnecessary cleverness which gives away the ending since it’s listed on Disney+ with “The New Avengers” appended, presuming that everyone already knows the twist.
Whoever decided to let people who don’t know comics or who hate comics (Zach Snyder!) make comic book films deserves that their pillows are always warm on BOTH sides. The credits list the cast by their characters’ names - not their superhero monikers. It took me a while to figure out who Antonia Dreykov was. It’s a superhero flick, give us their superhero names.
Look, I’m not a film critic, and I can’t claim to have even the faintest hint of good taste but I like the combination of brazen snark, witty banter and battlefield camaraderie in the face of certain doom that has become a Marvel movie staple. Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova (New Black Widow? Black Widow 2? Baby Widow?) does most of it, although everyone else pitches in, and she also manages to convince me, at least, that’s she’s still traumatised after losing her sister.
Because that’s where we start: Yelena’s voiceover tells us how miserable she is (even as she destroys a lab in Malaysia) and, after trying to reconnect with Alexei Shostakov (Red Guardian), tells her handler she wants something more heroic and public-facing than covert wetwork. Sure, says CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), one more mission and we’ll switch things up - only that mission turns out to be a bluff, because Valentina is dirty and trying to keep her hands clean.
This seems like an Amanda Waller play, and the film sets Valentina up as that kind of official. Turns out she’s pitted her agents against each other, but by the time she incinerates the top-secret desert research facility, three of them (Widow, Ghost and US Agent) have teamed up and survived, escaping with Bob, whom they found inside.
Along the way they name themselves the Thunderbolts (hint, that name doesn’t stick) and gain new members Red Guardian and Winter Soldier (who’s a US Congressman or Senator or both, I dunno). Valentina (desperate because she’s under investigation) turns against them all and captures Bob.
You don’t have to be a genius to guess that Bob is the key to it all (and long-time Marvel comics readers will have figured out who he is) but things go sideways and bad things happen and the Thunderbolts save the day - moments before Valentina dubs them The New Avengers to save herself.
There, you don’t have to watch the film (which ends with THE NEW AVENGERS AND BOB WILL RETURN in case you didn’t get it) unless you want all the pesky details and fun character bits.
Actually, watch if for the character bits. They’re the best parts!
(Oh, and Dreykov is the Taskmaster, introduced in the Black Widow movie and fridged early in this one to give the flick some emotional heft, according to the director Jake Schrier.)