Against odds, Marvel trades heroics for humanity. The result is a sober and focused character drama. Thunderbolts* does for the franchise what Zack Snyder’s fans only imagine he has done for DC’s enterprise. Jake Schreier has made the first great Marvel film in over a decade, one which fixes pretty much every common cinephile complaint about Marvel movies. There has been more to complain about lately but for once there is very little to worry about.
Spiritual darkness in superhero movies has often come without self-awareness. It has not, for a long time, felt earned. There are these comic book movies that are quippy fun and then there are these comic book movies that are grim-dark. Whether you want a simple power fantasy or a dark fable about the real consequences of being a hero have felt like the only two options for a while. Thunderbolts* earns its philosophical underpinnings, though, through sustained tone, actual character development, and storytelling that goes beyond action movie plotting.
What’s gorgeous about Thunderbolts* is that it allows its characters to be antiheroes. They don’t even have to be superheroes, mostly. They get to be seen for their humanity over their powers, so this extends beyond the more recent fare of Marvel characters who, for the most part, exist in a movie because they have or will exist in something else where their actions will be emboldened by actual meaning. This has resulted an entire series of movies wherein there is little consistent and self-contained throughline in terms of character storytelling.
Thunderbolts* is different, occupied with the formation of *The New Avengers, as the marketing has explained the asterisk. The asterisk, you’ll come to realize, is actually relevant and important, too, this is not a movie of any arbitrary design, after all. If nothing has seemed to matter over the last phase or so of movies, now everything seems to matter at once.
When exactly does Thunderbolts* make its statement of intent and pave — if the studio executives have sense — the future of the brand? It’s when the movie quotes the great Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: “Life can only be understood backwards.” Embodying Kierkegaard’s philosophy, Thunderbolts* is an existential text that says we must find our own individual means of authenticity, and then we must act on our principles. Then the movie just does that. And it’s terrific.
The Kierkegaard quote continues, “But it must be lived forwards,” and it’s something Marvel hasn’t done since everything became interconnected but finally it’s something they’re doing now.
The movie also doesn’t look like computerized sludge. It’s shot by Andrew Droz Palermo who also shot The Green Knight (2021) and never treats any shot like it’s disposable or not telling a story about what’s in the frame. He even shoots outside and it’s like whatever Kevin Feige said about The Erernals (2021), that they innovated by shooting outdoors. Looks good this time at least and the action is cut right and everything makes logical sense, from one shot to the next. So bravo at making a functional looking movie that doesn’t look like it’s been chewed up and spit out by rushed and underpaid computer effects workers.
Not for nothing but Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova is doing acting for actors. She’s putting on a clinic for how to be in Marvel going forward. Exceptional performance, in a series where that’s not the phrase you’d use for any of its performances. Better yet, the whole cast seems to respond to her directly and she has cultivated in this ensemble something more genuine, human, and true than anything any Avengers movie ever came close to capturing.
Would you believe even the flat bombast of the recent Marvel scores are gone? Instead, heady indie band Son Lux provide the score — and it’s good. It’s really good. It’s tonally appropriate, makes scenes better, and like every part of this project, feels designed towards achieving a common ideal.
Thunderbolts*, simply put, is one of Marvel’s best movies and the most serious one on cinematic terms that they’ve ever taken part in. Not only is it well-directed, written, shot, cut, scored, and acted, and all the other things, but also it’s just a very good self-contained movie that works both inside and outside the premise that it’s the next stage of Marvel. If this is the future, and it won’t be because it’s so rare, we got a very lucky break and Marvel got it right once.