As they so often do in Marvel Land, worlds collide in "Thunderbolts."
But in this refreshingly earthbound iteration of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the collision isn't a matter of interplanetary strife. "Thunderbolts" has been touted as the unlikely meeting of two of the dominant forces in 21st century American movies: Marvel and A24.
This isn't a co-production, but much of the creative team and many of the stars have ties to the indie studio. "Thunderbolts" is directed by Jake Schreier, who has directed many episodes of the A24 series "Beef," and was written by Joanna Calo (also a "Beef" veteran) and Eric Pearson (a Marvel veteran). The connections go further: cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo ("A Ghost Story," "The Green Knight"), editor Harry Yoon ("Minari") and a score by the band Son Lux ("Everything Everywhere All At Once").
Some trailers for "Thunderbolts" have highlighted these connections, perhaps in hopes of a little A24 auteur cool rubbing off on Hollywood's superhero factory. It's also a sign of how rough things have gotten for Marvel that, after a string of misfires, it's leaning on the studio behind "Swiss Army Man" for its latest would-be blockbuster.
Does that make "Thunderbolts" a hipper superhero movie? Can you expect "Babygirl"-like scenes of Black Widow drinking a glass of milk? The answer, of course, is that "Thunderbolts" has no more indie cred than "Avatar." What it is, though, is the best Marvel movie in years.
"Thunderbolts," about a group of MCU rejects who band together after CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) tries to erase them and their covert program, is both a return to form for Marvel and something a little different. While there's plenty of franchise building going on, "Thunderbolts" — the title of which bears an asterisk — is pleasantly stand-alone, and its spurts of spectacle more deftly proceed out of a tenderly told story.
If there's an influence on "Thunderbolts," it's less A24 than James Gunn. It borrows a little of the misfit irreverence of "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "The Suicide Squad." But Schreier's film is leaner and less antic than those movies, and it serves as an IMAX-sized platform for the increasingly obvious movie-star talents of Florence Pugh.
In the opening moments of "Thunderbolts," Pugh's Yelena Belova, a veteran of the Soviet assassin Black Widow program, melancholily stands atop a skyscraper. "There's something wrong with me," she says. "An emptiness." She drops, a parachute opens, and her narration continues. "Or maybe I'm just bored."
It's a telling opening for a film that wrestles sometimes earnestly, sometimes a little glibly, with malaise and depression. Yelena is searching for meaning in her life, dragged down by guilt and shame from her past, a pain that even her relentlessly chipper father Alexei, the self-proclaimed Red Guardian (David Harbour, magnificent), can't quell. When Yelena, on a mission, brutalizes a hallway full of armed guards — a shot that, as I critic, am contractually obligated to note is styled after the famous one from Park Chan-wook's "Oldboy" — Schreier films it from overhead in a shadowy ballet.
Shadows and death drape "Thunderbolts." When Yelena is dispatched on what she says will be her last job, she's surprised to encounter others like her — including the disgraced John Walker (Wyatt Russell) and the fight-mimicking Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) — sent to the same location. After some initial tussling, they realize they — like the protagonists of "Toy Story 3" — are standing inside of an incinerator. Adding to the confusion of their predicament is a guy with no apparent powers who simply introduces himself as "Bob" (Lewis Pullman, bringing a sensitivity rarely found in these movies).
They aren't quite a bizarro Avengers, but they — including Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes, who joins later — are all the products of dubious government programs that instill less patriotism than their more plainly heroic counterparts. As a group, they're plagued by doubt and uncertainty, and they're more inclined to bicker than give rousing speeches. And whenever anyone brushes too closely with Bob, they drift back into the darkest chapters of their own pasts that pull them like a deadweight toward suicidal thoughts.
Who, exactly, Bob turns out to be furthers this theme in "Thunderbolts," which never feels like it's lurching from one action set piece to another. That the final act of the movie is essentially set in a headspace, rather than above a threatened metropolis, is a testament to the interiority (not a word that often comes up in Marvel movies) of "Thunderbolts," a film that finds vivid comic-book imagery to render authentic real-life emotions.
That's always been the promise of a good comic book, but it's fair to say that the Marvel movies have recently found that tone elusive. When Louis-Dreyfus, looking just as home in Washington, D.C., as she was in "Veep," as De Fontaine declares, "The Avengers are not walking through that door," it's an acknowledgment — like then-Celtics coach Rick Pitino once vowed of Larry Bird — that "Thunderbolts" is here to make the most of what it's got. Of course, that there are, in fact, more "Avengers" films on the way slightly diminishes the sentiment.
But they won't be missed in "Thunderbolts." All the assembled parts here, including an especially high-quality cast (even Wendell Pierce!) work together seamlessly in a way that Marvel hasn't in some time. Most of all, Pugh commands every bit of the movie. It's less a revelation than a big-budget confirmation of the screen power of an actor who also has gone from A24 ("Midsommar") to Marvel stardom with ease.
"Thunderbolts," a Walt Disney Co. release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for strong violence, language, thematic elements, and some suggestive and drug references. Running time: 126 minutes. Three stars out of four.
