As I walked out of the theater (after waiting for the full credits to roll so I could see the movie’s final scene, naturally) I thought to myself “that wasn’t bad, for a Marvel movie.” During Marvel’s Infinity Saga, it wasn’t uncommon for moviegoers to forego that qualifier entirely. Thunderbolts* isn’t a return to that prime but it does manage to be one of the best Marvel movies since that special era.
From a set up perspective, Thunderbolts* takes its collection of surviving anti-heroes and forces them to work together. Kind of like a child playing with an arbitrary handful of toys they pulled out of a bin. This unfolds as you’d expect: the selfish loners don’t want or know how to play nice together until they have to and then they figure it out. Around all of this, you get standard Marvel fare—jokes in every scene, action set pieces, solid fight choreography, and a general disinterest in saying or doing anything controversial or off-putting.
The other side of the movie caught me off guard. Its first scene begins with a monologue from Yelena Belova set to an action sequence that shows and tells how unfulfilling and empty she feels about the state of her life. This theme, of something missing inside oneself, is core to the plot and is reflected in every member of the eventual team. A movie about capable people struggling with their mental health sounds very 2025… if it didn’t come from the house that Disney built. It surprised me that Marvel was willing to confront the topic and also do it in a way that didn’t cheapen it too much.
“Too much.” That’s a backhanded compliment, though, isn’t it? The second thought I had leaving the theater was “this would have been good if it was made by someone else.” Tell a few less jokes, bring the ensemble cast’s struggle with mental health into the focus, leave the need for mass appeal behind and Thunderbolts* could have been a different kind of superhero movie. Something more like the Watchmen graphic novel or The Boys streaming series, perhaps.
Despite its missed potential, Thunderbolts* has a chance to be Marvel’s best movie of the year. That’s got to be worth something for a film franchise that fell a lot faster than it rose.