Thunderbolts* review -- we needed this Marvel film with Florence Pugh

[Celerity]

This superhero film co-starring David Harbour and Sebastian Stan is refreshingly devoid of CGI spectacle, focusing instead on the impact of poor mental health

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/thunderbolts-review-marvel-florence-pugh-c9rldc6f7

https://archive.ph/u3wVS


Florence Pugh and David Harbour in Thunderbolts COURTESY OF MARVEL STUDIOS

It’s finally happened. The superhero brains trust have made a film — the 36th in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — that’s so different from all previous entries, so incessantly downbeat, devoid of gratuitous CGI spectacle and unwilling to rehash the familiar biff-bash-kerpow of intergalactic mayhem that it seems almost cruel to mark it with the same cheery branding as Iron Man, The Avengers, Thor et al. Indeed it probably explains why the opening Marvel Studios logo is here slowly consumed by queasy black shadows. There’s something doleful about this one, an air of moribund finality.

The first scene is a sobering mood setter, with Florence Pugh’s lead protagonist and Russian super spy, Yelena Belova, complaining of existential despair while inching towards the roof edge of Kuala Lumpur’s 118-storey Merdeka Tower. She then throws herself off in a sad-faced base jump that briefly emulates a suicide leap and establishes the emotional timbre of a movie in which the heroes frequently contemplate their worst deeds and the villain is no longer a Russian, an Arab, a Brit, a space alien or AI … but, well, poor mental health.

Sounds awful, but no. The original formulaic Marvel screenplay was rewritten by Lee Sung Jin, creator of TV’s Beef, and then again by Joanna Calo, the co-showrunner of The Bear. Between them they’ve found the sweet spot that allows a powerhouse performer such as Pugh to hold a drama together with tear-jerking scenes of ache and regret while nonetheless adhering to the nominal structural demands of a superhero movie.

And so Belova must team up with father figure and failed superhero Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian (David Harbour), former brainwashed assassin Bucky Barnes aka Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), translucent henchwoman Ava Starr aka Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and disgraced special forces captain John Walker aka US Agent (Wyatt Russell). And their enemy? A seemingly unassuming pyjama-clad millennial called Bob (Lewis Pullman) whose low self-esteem, crushing anxiety and PTSD have been combined with a CIA-approved ultra-serum to transform him into a terrifying supervillain who can trap humans in nightmare mind-loops of their worst, most disturbing and shame-filled memories. Belova’s involves all-consuming childhood guilt. Walker’s is about his failure as a father.

snip

[flying rabbit]

1. Looks interesting