Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Lewis Pullman, David Harbour, Geraldine Viswanathan, Olga Kurylenko, Chris Bauer, Wendell Pierce, Hannah John-Kamen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Gabreille Byndloss, Violet McGraw, Stefano Carannante, Alexa Swinton.
Where Captain America: Brave New World felt for large parts of the audience was by introducing characters to the screen too quickly, forcing a team dynamic where there had not been one in place for the audience to become accustomed to, to have a vested interested within.
Thunderbolts* rectifies that mistake quickly by putting together a group of disparate, alienated, disaffected individuals in a scenario where they were ordered to kill each other but found a way to act in unison to save their lives; their damnation across several films and Marvel mini series for television meant that the cinema crowd was already invested in their story, and in particular the way that is to be seen as receiving a kind of redemption, a second chance to be the best version of themselves.
It is a message that requires constant double downing on, we are all worth that chance to change, to be better than we are perceived, and with character representation coming from those who have suffered wrath in the public’s eye, a far cry from the adoration offered to Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man for example, the notion of redemption hits hard, it hits deep, and along with its subtle humour and the devastation of neglect hanging over each individual, it comes as no surprise that the anti-heroes show their heroic side the longer the film goes on.
The hard-hitting presence of Florence Pugh, arguably one of Britain’s most endearing modern actors, as Yelana Belova, and Wyatt Russell as the disgraced former Captain America replacement John Walker, does much to fashion and mould the audience’s expectations of how this team put together in adversity and perhaps fear of each other by an outside force can bare witness to greatness coming from within.
It is to the rejection of each person, dismissed, left alone by circumstances, by design, that the audience can identify with, and the application of a neatly told story, the drive of those performing the exquisite stunts, again in particular Florence Pugh’s opening base jump off the Merdeka 118 building, shows serious intention as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to find the one spark that will bring the long established film series back to the same level of demand enjoyed in the run up to Avengers: Endgame.
A spirited and finely scripted tale worthy of the MCU, it sits comfortably within the finer films of the series and one that deals with details of alienation, isolation, and redemption with a finer grasp of reality than many in its class. Thunderbolts* is the sign that the company is back on the right track ahead of its other possible blockbuster releases.
Ian D. Hall