‘Thunderbolts*’ is a welcome shift in the MCU

At this point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I often ask why I even bother. Why put up with the casting announcements, release date changes, rumors and debates? Why sit through the endless credits for a small tease of what’s to come next, which, at this point, will likely be less than what it advertised? Why drift over to Disney+ to watch the required supplemental material? That’s a task I quickly gave up on after “WandaVision” vastly overstayed its welcome. 

I’ll tell you why. Because, like every Minnesota sports fan who’s lived through countless seasons of agony and deep soul searching, there comes a time when the clouds lift and you feel as if you’ve been placed upon the highest mountain. The release of “Thunderbolts*” (no, that asterisk is not a typo) marks that time for the MCU.

Of course, as any Minnesotan will tell you, the vast majority of those peaks still came just short of a championship. “Thunderbolts*” is also not a championship-worthy film for the MCU, more akin to the new era of the Minnesota Timberwolves after the doldrums of the early 2010s (I’m writing this analogy while doped up on the adrenaline of a 3-1 opening playoff series lead over the evil empire that is the Los Angeles Lakers). It’s also a movie that made me wish I was less forgiving of “Captain America: Brave New World” just a few months ago. I wrote that that movie was “a semi-comforting reminder that it’s OK for a movie to be just fine and forgettable.” Now I’d recalculate that allocation much more in the latter’s camp than the former.

After some gloomy studio logos, everyone’s favorite raised-from-the-womb assassin, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), speaks that “there’s something wrong with me … an emptiness … a void.” She’s going through the motions, completing missions and erasing targets with nothing more than a blank stare. Thankfully, director Jake Schreier doesn’t share her sentiments when it comes to manning this $200 million behemoth. The guy at the helm of the Netflix series “Beef” gives the opening proceedings a more flavorful edge, opting for a much-marketed practical skyscraper jump and longer-take in-camera fight choreography.

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In Yelena’s world, there is no such thing as loyalty, so a chance encounter between her, John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) in the belly of a secret underground bunker housing the secrets of CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is definitely not a pleasant coincidence. They’re all supposed to kill each other, leaving no more loose ends for the impeachment trial that’s digging up all of their involvement in Valentina’s off-the-book endeavors. Since they all realize that they have a common enemy, the loners decide to team up to increase their chances of survival, which, in this case, just means that they’d like to prolong the inevitable delay until their fate catches up with them.

But unlike the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, this ragtag group does not consist of heroes looking to strengthen their commitment to protecting humanity or lovable misfits who just needed a chance to do good. These are all bad people, leaving piles of bodies in their wake. They’re also characters that don’t immediately scream that they’re all that interesting. Walker and Valenita are from “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” a show I never watched. Ghost and Taskmaster respectively appeared as the antagonists in “Ant-Man and the Wasp” and “Black Widow,” two films I’ve completely memory-holed. Yelena did make an impression in “Black Widow” and her successive appearances in the MCU, much of that coming from Pugh’s innate charm and pathos.

Much credit goes to the performers, as well as co-writers Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, for making these less-than-desirable characters into compelling people. The quips have been dialed back, and the ones that do stick around land at a much more consistent rate. David Harbour’s Red Guardian does throw off that balance on a few too many occasions, with the character’s lovability being sabotaged by an overwhelming eagerness. There’s also the presence of Bob (Lewis Pullman), a Valentina-sponsored human experiment who has the power to make those that he touches relive their worst nightmares.

With the aid of the A24 veteran duo of cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo and production designer Grace Yun, there’s a more natural balance to the emotional depth of these characters. That “Absolute Cinema” trailer touting the indie credentials of all the talent involved may have reeked of cinemaphile desperation, but the final product illustrates that the marketers weren’t lying about the goods they’ve assembled here.

The theme of the film is recovering from driftlessness through finding a purpose alongside friends and family. For as much as a gun or a fist can accomplish, some nice words and a hug can do a lot more. To be talking about ideas and themes instead of Easter eggs and cameos is a breath of fresh air for the MCU, one that I dubiously hope they’ll maintain as they wade into the titans that are this summer’s “Fantastic Four: First Steps” and next year’s “Avengers: Doomsday.”

Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures will release “Thunderbolts*” in theaters nationwide on Friday, May 2.

Eden Prairie resident Hunter Friesen is a film critic who owns and operates The Cinema Dispatch, a website where he writes reviews, essays, and more. He currently serves as the president of the Minnesota Film Critics Association and travels the globe covering film festivals both big and small. To view his entire body of work, you can visit his website and Instagram.