or, “$180 and Not $180-Million”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.
1 out of 5
Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*” is lustreless – not just in its “New Avengers” advertising, or its ragtag group of antiheroes: accrued from a roster that studio boss Kevin Feige himself, ironically, would call “homework.”
A lifetime ago, I made an uncouth script pitch for a cop movie to a university girlfriend, with its villain a serial rapist. She asked why it was so important to use rape as a plot device. “Because it sells!”
What I meant to say (retrospectively) was that, along with child peril & domestic abuse, rape elicits a powerful viewer response, which they want ‘avenged’ by the time the credits roll. That’s just one of the stupid things I said & did to send that relationship into free-fall, much like Marvel Studio’s stupid choices since “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019 – theirs’ being a lack of creative honour, and too much contextual juggling.
Irrespectively, Marvel productions still carry a professional-grade aesthetic, even if you don’t connect with them on a human level. But while there’s no literal rape in Thunderbolts*, it violated my other sensibilities.
[cont’d]
Thunderbolts* is fearsomely boring and aggressively self-important. It’s too long without enough action, lacking the earned stakes & delightful thick-headedness that February’s “Captain America 4” tried rooting. You’ll either find its humour successfully maudlin – or wearying – consisting largely of David Harbour’s ESL screaming, Florence Pugh’s misanthropy, and the never-ending calls for Bob.
Sebastian Stan’s fatigue of playing Bucky for a decade-plus shows here more than ever. The first act has the characters trapped in a room for almost an hour like the budget’s $180 and not $180-million, and no one shuts up. Sentry is a tired villain. There’s no climactic spectacle. And I would be remiss not to mention the child peril & domestic abuse ransacked from everyone’s backstories to make you feel bad & artificially invested in the proceedings.
If you’re a casual viewer who doesn’t fret with media history and its wealth of faster-paced, more entertaining (sometimes funny) works that do a better job translating social challenges to the mainstream – if that’s what you want – then maybe you’ll be in the majority I saw Thunderbolts* with, who laughed & clapped and seemed to enjoy themselves.
For everyone else who wants a mindless night at the cinema, Thunderbolts* is the leftover bile from six years of Marvel dry-heaving to keep its weight.
//wd 5.9.2025
Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Are you aligned with the positive-erring Metacritic aggregate, or are you aligned with Warren? Have you seen all the movies & shows that initially introduced the individual Thunderbolts, or did you go into the team-up blind? Do you think Zach Snyder’s DC movies have better illustrations of flawed heroes, or is that a melodramatic example? Leave us your comments below!
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