Director Jake Schreier (Netflix’s Beef) delivers one of the most engaging features to the Marvel Canon since the heyday of the era of the Russo Brothers and James Gunn.
There’s something to the idea that the Peak TV era delivered its best returns as entries in the MCU.
When you look at the best films in the canon of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a gargantuan entity that you almost have to see as a serial with over 30 films and god knows how many TV shows as part of its massive shadow, a simple truth pops up.
It’s best films are directed by people who came from lauded TV shows. The Russo Brothers, arguably the stewards of the Infinity Saga, directors of the cream of the crop like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Civil War and Avengers: Endgame, came from the small screen excellence that was NBC’s Community.
Hitting screens this weekend, we have what I feel is the best film since those halcyon days, Thunderbolts*, directed by Jake Schreier, who helmed every episode of the best show Netflix has given us in years, Beef.
On many levels, Thunderbolts* works because it’s concept, misfit characters from various perceived B-level Marvel franchises (Black Widow, Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Antman and The Wasp) are hired as mercenaries to clean up messes and led to a scenario where they dispose of each other, echoes the antihero theme popular in franchises like The Boys, The Suicide Squad and Invincible. Where it stands out is the creative team behind the film and the standout actors who really sink into the material here.
Florence Pugh returns here as Yelena Belova, the sister of Scarlett Johannsen’s Black Widow. She’s floated around since the events of that film as a hitman-for-hire for Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra De Fontaine, the sleazy quasi-evil alternative to Nick Fury who has been floating around Disney +’s Marvel television shows recruiting most of these characters for something in the post-credit scenes of those shows for the past few years. It’s revealed here that Valentina has been using character’s like Wyatt Russell’s USAgent John Walker, Hannah John Kamen’s Ghost and Black Widow’s Yelena and Taskmaster as her erstwhile Suicide Squad to cover up her involvement in a company called OXE that stands to get her impeached from her role as CIA Director. This is due to proceedings pushed in part by the former Winter Soldier James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, now a Senator halfway through his first term as three years have passed since the events of Captain America Brave New World. Valentina’s endgame is to send all of her minions to an OXE base in Nevada to get them all to kill each other off. Rather than succeed, the survivors of this ambush join up realizing they have been played by Valentina and they encounter a new character in this scenario, a man named Bob (played by Lewis Pullman) who has no memory of how he got there, only a vague recollection of joining a medical study in Malaysia.
Bob, as we learn, is a victim of an abusive household who suffers from a sort of bi-polar schizophrenia that grants him the highest of highs that give him delusions of grandeur. This is offset by lows so low they manifest as an endless dark void he cannot escape. The result of the experimentation of different serums on Bob, similar to those that created super soldiers like Steve Rogers and monsters like the Abomination, manifest in a unique way in Bob. They grant him invincible godlike powers the likes of which have never been seen before and Valentina sees the opportunity to mold Bob into a hero concept her think tank has thought up called The Sentry. She plans to manipulate Bob into wiping out Yelena and her fellow mercenaries to make his shining debut as Earth’s mightiest hero. But this goes awry when Bob’s spectrum of mental disorders give him the vision to see he has nothing ahead of him and a god like him needs no one, especially Valentina.
This is a rough summary of the story minus the twists and character moments one should discover in the theater as Thunderbolts* really is the rare Marvel movie that really excels in a theatrical setting. The film is shot by Andrew Droz Palermo who shot A Ghost Story and The Green Knight for director David Lowery and the film has a definitive aura and atmosphere. The script by Eric Pearson (who also wrote Black Widow – which this is basically a stealth sequel to that film) draws heavily on the trauma the characters returning from that film faced and the loss of Natasha. The relationship between Pugh’s Yelena and David Harbour’s Red Guardian is the emotional underpinning of the film, but the tensions and connections between the core cast, especially Russell’s John Walker, really tie the film together. The trauma bonds here echo Beef, but its the connection and character moments with Pullman’s Bob and Yelena that really make this a film worth watching. Pullman could’ve easily been a one note character but the push and pulls within his personas in this film and the way they are executed in the film’s third act really elevate the film. Palermo also shot a lot of horror films like You’re Next and V/H/S and there is a heavy influence on that skill set in the film’s big set piece. It definitely reminds you at times of films like A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Everything Everywhere All At Once with a great blend of practical effects, good performances, lighting, and CGI to create some amazing moments.
The film also does well dealing with issues of depression and mental illness. Pullman and Pugh’s characters bond over the emptiness inside of them and the way the film weaves that narrative into the film’s stakes makes it really relatable. One person’s life can echo the sentiments of many and the way that that worked in Everything Everywhere All At Once’s stakes and how the Dream Warriors needed to be together to defeat Freddy echo through this film in terms of influence and that’s a way that this movie works, by having a relatable enemy that can be redeemed because we can empathize with what is happening and that is a power.
A lot has been made of the film’s asterisk. Rest assured, there’s an excellent payoff for that at the conclusion of the film. Don’t look it up, it’s a great feeling once you realize where it’s going. Overall, Thunderbolts* is in the same vein as Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), really making chicken salad out of a forgotten film or shows B characters and making them shine in the hands of those talented performers embodying them with their film’s original writer making them shine in the hands of a phenomenal visual creative team. There are two post-credit scenes, both of which I don’t care for, but set up jokes and future films. I suggest skipping them, but your mileage may vary.
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THUNDERBOLTS* (2025)
****
Proof that Marvel has a heart – and can make a good movie – when they don’t prioritize pushing a bunch of movies that might not get made for the sake of a post credits scene.
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OUT OF THEATRE REACTION