Arts & Culture

Thunderbolts*
Where: In theatres
What: Movie, 126 mins.
When: Now
Genre: MCU
Rating: NNN (out of 5)
Why you should watch: A decent MCU effort, nothing special but light years ahead of recent superhero duds.

IT’S A STATEMENT on how far the Marvel Comic Universe (MCU) has fallen that the biggest news about the latest instalment of the beleaguered franchise, Thunderbolts*, is that it doesn’t stink.

And that is huge considering the stream of flops that have poured out of the MCU in recent years including: Black Widow, The Marvels, Captain America: Brave New World and the rest. So, Thunderbolts* is better than all of those, but is it any good? It’s not bad, which is massive praise in the context.

Falling somewhere between The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, Thunderbolts* is never quite a great version of either, neither reliably funny nor crush-your-bag-of-popcorn exciting. It’s kind of amusing with action scenes that have that feeling of sameness that overtakes all the recent MCU punchouts that blast from one edge of the frame to the other, generally destroying a few city blocks in the process.

It’s the comic studio’s latest version of the wise-assed, half-assed heroes trope, seen in Guardians of the Galaxy, among others. As MCU goes, it’s mid-level, which is huge step up these days. Thunderbolts*’s success is led by Florence Pugh as somewhat suicidal Russian anti-hero Yelena Belova, who steals almost every scene she is in.

There is the usual gathering-of-the-gang setup as well of plenty of other “narrative housekeeping” that lards the start of the film and that all feels like the preamble for an inevitable sequel. Those not steeped in nerdgasmic levels of MCU understanding will still be able to follow the story such as it is.

Belova is eventually joined by Captain America’s Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) who does a decent job as a greasy congressman — aren’t they all — as well as a massively overplayed and annoying Red Guardian (David Harbour) — who also happens to be Belova’s now-clingy dad — John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) as well as a pajama-clad and very disoriented dude named Bob (Lewis Pullman).

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is superb as corrupt and conniving CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who wants to gather the Thunderbolts to serve her own evil agenda. If only the rest of the cast was as expert at dropping in zinger comic lines among the intrigue and scheming.

Ultimately, Thunderbolts* feels like a placeholder, the half-formed setup for what MCU hopes will be the characters who resurrect the flailing franchise. And yes, for those prepared to linger long into the credits and learn who the Atlanta foley operators were as well as which states and provinces kicked in cash to make this, there eventually is a “payoff” that reveals Marvel’s longer-term aspirations.