Thunderbolts* falls between Disney's disastrous Snow White remake and the upcoming, already polarizing Fantastic Four retelling. Some have dismissed Thunderbolts* in advance as a interim throwaway (a big-screen epilogue at most and least for the long spent Falcon and the Winter Soldier), but unlike other recent, Disney productions, where boring infallibility becomes the crutch, this team-up features failures, losers, wannabes and misfits to swoop in and not only save the world, but to show life's ups and downs are all a matter of perspective.
Even with this said, the movie, directed by Jake Scheier and written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, holds a tested structure, which though similar to the The Avengers string, is more in line with the Suicide Squad set, Borderlands, The Dirty Dozen and The Expendables franchises. And that it highlights protagonists who are flawed makes it superior to its "fleckless" competition, depicting more humanized and complex circumstances than one finds in Captain Marvel and The Last Jedi. To rephrase, it's about real people in fanciful suits with curbed powers, who could be you or me (more or less), with comparable problems, doubts and fears.
The characters (though not representative of the original, comic-book team) make it all convincing and consist of Wyatt Russell as John Walker, aka U.S. Agent (the ex-Captain America); Sabastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier (and disgruntled congressman); David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov, aka the jovial Red Guardian; Florence Pugh as the woeful but endearing Yelena Belova, aka the Black Widow (who, if the truth be known, presses much of the action); Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr, aka the elusive Ghost; Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov, aka the testy Taskmaster; Julia Lewis-Dreyfus as derisive, CIA agent Valentina Allegra de Fontaine; and Geraldine Vishwanathan as Mel, de Fontaine's wary assistant. Most are familiar faces (or in the least reminiscent of others in the MCU), plucked from the hazy margins, assembled to dominate a clear and ardent center.
With the Avengers nowhere to be found, it's the Thunderbolts* (the name being a temporary one, taken from the Widow's kiddie, soccer team) who are left to rescue humankind, facing one who at first seems an unlikely adversary, Bob Reynolds, aka Sentry, a Vought-like superhuman who can dip into one's subconscious and place one in a void, where one's worst memories play over and over again.
The story moves the principles from a seemingly inescapable "vault" to a road chase to an edgy confrontation in the old, Avengers headquarters, snapping with energy and stabbing humor, which allows each Thunderbolt* to show off his/her abilities, which means we see them pick themselves up when all seems lost.
Thunderbolts* isn't going to redefine any superhero or anti-hero tropes. However, its message is a strong one, encouraging viewers to never give up whenever they feel down: a welcome reprieve for the hollow-hearted miscalculations other such movies have offered.
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