'Thunderbolts*' briefing

1 ½ (out of 4)

            Kevin Feige you son of a bitch, I just knew that asterisk was up to no good. But I had no idea you would assume the most obvious twist of all time — so obvious you had to spoil that the THUNDERBOLTS are now THE NEW AVENGERS before the movie even came out — could win us over in the end even if scruffy, scrappy heart did not. I didn’t guess what you actually wanted was to innocuously, comprehensively rebrand everything in order to resuscitate the regularly declining interest in what’s left of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, uh, sorry but this ain’t no Guardians of the Galaxy (any Volume) even if it wants to be. A Minecraft Movie probably handled the “bickering misfits who must learn to work together in the end” bullshit better than Thunderbolts*.

I really don’t get it, who could genuinely claim this movie is saving, rescuing, ahem avenging ANYTHING, let alone the MCU? ‘bolts is such a comically slight, self-admitting shrug of a movie, an entertainment insult excusing itself with crude psychological commentary. I’m quite astounded any sane person could see this as a rebound, “the best since Endgame!” I’m sorry are you on crack? You astroturfing me bro? Thunderbolts* is a most pathetic meta-acknowledgement of the MCU’s rut — it’s somehow more direct than Deadpool & Wolverine’s digs last year about stewing in the universally accepted “low point” of 2020s Marvel movies. 

The biggest draw — the bored Sebastian Stan as Bucky — is still some suit, doing roughly nothing two movies straight. Taskmaster is ironically capped IMMEDIATELY, don’t even bother checking if Bond girl #57 Olga Kurylenko is still under there. I got the best of the emotional play between Florence Pugh’s Yelena and David Harbor’s Red Guardian in Black Widow. Then heck yeah, there’s a THIRD super soldier in Wyatt Russell’s sub-Cap’n ’Murica — wow so many version of the same brooding, quipping grumpy gills, likewise for the pretty neat Ant-Man and the Wasp villain Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) that you sideline, just another frowning reprobate in need of redemption along with every one of her interchangeable co-characters… Something’s cooking in the first act just as our cruddy cavalcade of mercenaries realize they criss-cross on each other’s hit-lists and cooperate for survival to break out of an oversized death trap, but Thunderbolts* then promptly hits the snooze button on becoming a creditable comic book adventure all the way until its grotesque mid-credit denouement has overstayed welcome.

This is stepping-stone Marvel at its most meandering and mundane, and Phase Four and Five have basically been the stepping stone saga (anyone still multiverse-hungry should die) rearing the infinity one. But even next to the recent MCU misfires that left me most disappointed, I’m still baffled here — for current contrast, Captain America: Brave New World was more involving and cohesive than this drab clusterfuck deplete of grace, action goodies and anything other than pandering thematics in hand with yet another bad guy in need of some super-therapy. The time to pull out and prop up D-list characters was whenever you hired James Gunn, whose riskier ridiculousness was tethered by Guardians’ mission to win you over somehow, if annoyingly so. This shit thinks that with tepid, tactless discussions and depictions of depression it can be INSTANTLY RELATABLE OMG ALSO LET ME SHIP YELENA AND SENTRY.

Poor director Jake Schreier is rolled right into the Disney pulverizer, his light hand lost after guiding and getting the best of odd ensembles in both geriatric android buddy comedies (Robot & Frank) and even peak pointless, insipid YA adaptations (John Green’s Paper Towns). Here Schreier is virtually voiceless — what did you nab him for, the emo faux-poignant shit specifically? Marvel and themes don’t mix, and when they did it was never as clumsy, baffling and embarrassing to hear and witness, this was almost worse than the big bear of emotion at the end of the similarly desperate demi-reboot New Mutants. The bang for your buck in Marvelville and most major flicks is sheer entertainment value, HELLO! NOT goddamn teen novel coming-of-age pretension like “it’s OK to be sad” and “you have to literally face your fears, except don’t face your fears, oh no facing your fears was a trap!” WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! 

No, Thunderbolts* is a structurally, ideologically confused mess. There’s also something about the tone and self-awareness that is especially distasteful to me: “This isn’t a marketing opportunity” Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Nega-Nick Fury string-puller transparently remarks. Are you messing with me? That’s all this is, feigning the arrival of something BRAND NEW but trojan-horse-ing the same ol’ shit as always in some reverse mystery box. Come expecting something fresh and unexpected and you get stale leftovers — its just too ironic how empty the 36th MCU misadventure is considering the cute cereal box marketing, there’s no sustenance, no prize, not even a plastic bag. At this point they’ll try to shill us Jon Favreau’s Happy movie, YES all the MCU periphery will become the focal, don’t worry we’re definitely not creatively grasping at straws and leaving audiences to gnaw on substandard scraps!

While before I could say The Fantastic Four: First Steps was a ”finally!” moment for capeshitters, at some point these past several months I realized I couldn’t care less. Why admit you’ve peaked when you can’t even regularly pretend to give it your all, to hell with whatever Fox property crossovers you have up your sleeve. Even divorced from the advertising, Thunderbolts* wants to act like it’s this big surprise, ready to sweep people off their feet. Coming out the other end it’s possibly the most charmless, underwhelming ”blockbuster” I’ve ever seen in my life — eh if The Marvels didn’t exist.