Reviews for the Marvel franchise’s newest movie are coming in hot, with critics praising “Thunderbolts*” and its director, Jake Schreier.
It’s no “Avengers,” according to reviewers, but maybe that’s the point, as attempts to recreate past gems in the franchise have grown tiresome.
Critics think the film brings freshness into an overdone franchise, while leaning hard on a standout cast. They say you can’t quite call it a revival, but it is somewhat a relief — Marvel finally did something new.
“Thunderbolts*” brings together a team of wallflower antiheroes for a mission that’s more personal than is typical in the Marvel universe.
The team is led by Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan.)
It also includes: Red Guardian (David Harbour); Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen); Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko); and U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell.)
“Thunderbolts*” shows the team trying to rescue a man named Bob (Lewis Pullman) from a government lab. The movie trades Marvel’s usual CGI-driven spectacle for a more character-driven story. The outsider group comes together a little broken and discover that their unique quirks, when combined, can achieve wonders.
What critics are saying
- Film critic Peter Debruge from Variety said, “Precious few of these movies rise to the level of essential viewing. … However frivolous it may sound, Schreier’s scrappy ensemble effort is anything but a one-off.” He continued, “Most of ‘Thunderbolts*’ smells like reshoots and ADR-enhanced attempts to steer this lumbering franchise back toward something mainstream audiences might show up to see in theaters. ... The Marvel strategists were smart to anchor the film with Yelena — not because she’s an especially compelling character, but on account of who’s playing her.”
- Film critic David Ehrlich from IndieWire said, “‘Thunderbolts*’ never quite manages to reconcile its ‘Can you believe these rejects are going to save the world?’ smirk with its ‘the real threat is being unloved’ plot, but Pullman and Pugh at least manage to sell us on the tug-of-war between those two opposing forces. ... I found the sequence to be emotionally unsatisfying, but the choice to forego a more spectacle-driven finale makes sense at the end of a movie that mostly consists of strained banter and trauma-dumping."
- Film critic David Rooney from The Hollywood Reporter said, “‘Thunderbolts*’ by no means reinvents the superhero movie and its pacing isn’t as consistent as it could be. But at a time when Marvel fatigue has taken a bite out of more than one fizzled blockbuster, it’s a relief to watch a comic-book movie in which the smug wisecracking is dialed way down and the characters are given interior dimensions beyond their powers, including a certain emotional fragility. That doesn’t mean there’s any less physical action or threatened destruction, but there’s a kind of back-to-basics innocence here that makes the stakes feel more real.”
- Film critic Joey Magidson from Awards Radar said, “The initial thought might be to dismiss 'Thunderbolts*' as an also-ran. That would be a mistake, since this flick is one of Marvel’s more successful efforts of late."