Thunderbolts*

A lot of people I follow online really like Thunderbolts*. I can see why. I can also see good reasons for disliking it. The MCU is getting very complicated these days.

Let’s start with the bad stuff. The plot is ridiculous. It is a superhero movie, so it is going to be pretty silly. This is worse than most because it goes into that “character so powerful he is effectively a god” territory. That’s seriously godlike, not just worshipped as a god as per Thor and Loki.

The list of characters is complicated too. Some of them are little-known, even if you have been following the MCU. Ghost just has a supporting villain role in an Ant Man movie. John Walker is an incompetent villain in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Red Guardian is a supporting character from Black Widow and a thoroughly ridiculous character who exists mostly to make fun of Soviet Russia.

There are also some weird disconnects. I can’t quite get my head around Bucky being a Congress-critter, and frankly he doesn’t seem very good at it. Nor can I understand Sam Wilson going to court over the Avengers name. I can see he’s annoyed, but Sam is the sort of guy whose first move is always to try to find a compromise. As for Valentina, she’s been built up as this ruthless, genius manipulator, but in this film she’s often incompetent and strangely forgiving of Mel’s treachery.

All that said, Lewis Pullman does a fine job as Bob, The Sentinel and The Void. Playing three incredibly different aspects of the same character can’t be easy.

Even so, I suspect that the film would still have been a flop had it not been for Florence Pugh. She totally carries this film, and is given a nice, meaty story arc with which to do it. If you have the film on disc, which I do (because I don’t trust streaming services) then you will see from the Extras that Pugh has even more personality off screen than she has on it. She’s quite extraordinary.

The focus on mental health is also quite interesting, though it is hard to tackle such a difficult subject in a frivolous vehicle such as a superhero movie. The fact that it is a team show makes it even harder. Ghost and Walker obviously have their own issues, but there isn’t space in the film to do them justice because Bob, Yelena and Alexi take up all the room. I suspect that the group hug thing fell flat for a lot of viewers too. It was very California.

And now, of course, we are all set up for Avengers: Doomsday. In that we will have the old Avengers (led by Falcon), the new Avengers (aka Thunderbolts) and the Fantastic Four. Because this is a superhero movie, they are all going to end up fighting each other before they can properly tackle Doctor Doom. I have an awful feeling that it is going to be a mess. If it isn’t, we will probably have Florence Pugh to thank for that too.