Thunderbolts*

I’m not gonna say the MCU is “back,” but this is the kind of quality the series has been needing for a while.

Following a ragtag group of heroes, anti-heroes, and straight up villains, Thunderbolts* features Yelena Belova aka Black Widow (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Bucky Barnes aka Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), and a strange man known only as Bob (Lewis Pullman), as they inexplicably cross paths after being tapped to do the bidding of CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Realizing there’s more going on to their respective missions than what Valentina is letting on, it’s up to Yelena to keep her “team” together as they attempt to get to the bottom of a superhero-sized problem they’ve found themselves in, all the while trying to figure out who this random Bob guy is and why he may be the most powerful weapon of them all.

Bringing together a cast of characters hailing from various MCU films and television series, Thunderbolts* mainly succeeds thanks to a script and sense of direction that finds the right angle into not only introducing a handful of characters who many might not be familiar with, but telling a story that, for the first time in a long time, puts characters over spectacle.

And since a lot of the plot hinges on the mysterious Bob as well as his unusual set of powers that causes others to face their traumas, these abilities do wonders in fleshing out multiple characters’ story arcs in ways I didn’t expect, as this simple plot device helps the film successfully avoid the common MCU trap of becoming yet another action-heavy and CGI-riddled mess.

Paced well but still clearly missing some moments that could have helped its story along even more, it’s Thunderbolts*’s focus on characters, plot, action, and humor — in that order — that makes it such a welcome surprise for me. Throw in some connections to the overarching MCU that actually feel consequential for once, some genuinely fun action bits and character banter, and Thunderbolts* is a film that anyone who has cooled off on the MCU absolutely needs to see.

Yet for all the things I liked about this movie, not everything worked. As mentioned above, there was something about the way some parts of it flowed — specifically in the last act — that I couldn’t get behind. I know that most MCU movies are trying to stick close to the two-hour mark nowadays, but after the third act pulls the rug out from under us in a totally depressing and unexpected way, it was clear that this sequence alone needed another ten minutes to breathe, to say nothing about other scenes throughout the film that I definitely needed some extra attention.

Oh, and just because I like being petty, I’m highly annoyed that the marketing campaign for this one ruined the entire title change at the end of the film less than a week after it came out. Let’s just say the asterisk isn’t there to look cool and actually factors into the story in an interesting way, but I digress.

Thunderbolts* isn’t a perfect movie, but it does what all good Marvel movies should strive to do: give fans exciting set pieces, decent character work, just the right amount of MCU connectedness, and the kind of humor that doesn’t make them cringe every other joke. That being said, the third act could have used some extra time to develop its final conflict further, and there are a few spots throughout that feel less than complete, but overall, Thunderbolts* is the MCU movie that needs to be the baseline for this live-action franchise moving forward.