‘Thunderbolts*’ Doesn’t Show The Work
There’s a lot of charm in this “scrappy superhero” cut-rate Avengers riff, but it’s undermined by the traditional blockbuster problem: An underdeveloped antagonist.
NEW STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This newsletter aggressively spoils things.
There’s a lot of charm in Thunderbolts*, a film that attempts to course-correct the bloated and floundering Marvel cinematic universe via a classic maneuver: A low-stakes underdog tale1. Instead of heavy hitters like Iron Man and Captain America, the story instead focuses on also-rans like The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), and takes pains to ensure the audience understands that these folks aren’t particularly powerful or heroic. “God, we suck,” Yelena says at one point, a repeated sentiment that lampshades the downgrade audiences are experiencing2.
Of course, this meant as cheeky misdirection: As soon as you accept that the Thunderbolts (named after Yelena’s childhood pee wee soccer team, who also sucked) are never going to be as great as The Avengers, they’re revealed to be the new Avengers! Ha ha! You were totally fooled and now you look ridiculous.
This is actually pretty fun. There’s a bit of wit in how ground down and self-hating the Thunderbolts are, not to mention how terrible they are at being superheroes3. It’s easy to root for people who are struggling to not hate themselves, especially when they stumble onto a problem that needs solving before people get hurt or killed (or worse). There’s just one problem, and it’s a common one in superhero movies (and action movies in general): They’re in such a rush to get to the reveal they don’t bother to develop the antagonist, which makes the whole thing feel like a joke.
I’m Fine, I Had a Great Past, I’m Totally Fine
The conceit of Thunderbolts* is fun: These also-ran superheroes have all been doing sketchy black ops for CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus4), and when congressional investigations get a bit too close, de Fontaine sends them to kill each other in a secure facility that’s also set to incinerate everything in it, as an extra dose of covering her ass. When the also-rans figure out they’ve been played, they team up for self-preservation with a side order of possible revenge.
At the facility, they meet a guy named ... Bob. Bob initially appears to be a regular guy who somehow got trapped in the secure facility, but he’s actually the only survivor of a secret project called Sentry that aimed to engineer superpowers in people (de Fontaine thought all the Sentry subjects died, and was intending to burn their corpses). The Thunderbolts take Bob under their wing, to an extent. As it turns out, the Sentry project worked gangbusters on Bob, and he’s actually an incredibly powerful superhero, as evidenced by this scene where the Thunderbolts all try to overpower him5.
The problem here is that we go from Bob as slightly-confused-normal-seeming-dude-with-a-shade-of-darkness to Bob Ascendant6 without much transition—there’s exactly one scene where de Fontaine talks to Bob, and then bam, he’s gotten a dye job and a nifty suit. He just sort of knows how to use all those powers, and accepts his superman-esque elevation without a hint of hesitation7.
That’s bad enough; the antagonist arrives with zero motivation or comprehensible back story. It gets worse, though, because Bob/Sentry isn’t even the real antagonist. That would be The Void.
I Don’t Think So, Junior Varsity Captain America
The Void is essentially Bob’s trauma and self-hatred, his dark side, and it takes over completely, and begins to consume New York City. The Void actually looks pretty cool:
I dig it! It’s a neat concept, and I like the implication that all the also-ran superheroes are powerless against The Void because they’re all basically despairing self-haters who essentially hear the Call of the Void and kind of like it8.
But The Void isn’t just underdeveloped, he’s negative developed9. Making a villain the sum of a character’s trauma and self-hatred kind of requires that the audience know something about the character’s trauma and self-hatred. We get some glimpses of Bob’s unhappy life ... after The Void appears, as the Thunderbolts crash around Bob’s weird psychological maze dimension, filled with shame rooms10. It’s pretty perfunctory, and coming after The Void’s introduction kind of sucks the impact out of it. If we knew that Bob was, like, really dark and angry, then the Void’s sudden appearance would be a shitbrick kind of moment. As it is, your first reaction is to wonder if they forgot to pay a special effects person11.
One suspects there was a lot more Bob backstory in the script at some point that were cut in order to give David Harbour a few more comedy lines. And The Void has a whole presence in the comics, so if you’re familiar with them this isn’t a problem. But for the rest of us, the lack of character development here undermines the whole film. Which is a shame, as it has potential. The idea of a bunch of whiny Grade C superheroes saying “We suck” as a mantra and then having to battle the literal embodiment of “We suck” self-hatred? You could so stuff with that.
I have so much self-hatred, if The Void bonded with me we would instantly become the most powerful force in the universe. This is why I drink to make myself feel better: To save you all from that fate. I’m the hero, here, is what I’m saying12.
NEXT WEEK: DTF St. Louis is a shapeshifter.
If you enjoy this newsletter, consider subscribing to my paid fiction Substack, Writing Without Rules: From the Notebook!
Sort of how I attempt to make my own bloated and floundering life and career seem zippier by faking my own kidnapping every few weeks.
It’s that rarity: Exposition that is also charming enough to get a pass.
I mean, you could attach a fancy robot arm to me and I would still be utterly incapable of defeating enemies, you know? I’d use it mostly to smash stuff for my own amusement.
Unfortunately, Louis-Dreyfuss did such a good job inhabiting Selina Meyer on Veep I see every character she plays as Selina. Which usually makes everything even more hilarious, so it works.
Side thought: At what point are YouTube’s ads so egregious we ll decide to burn the place down? Count me in, whenever it happens.
I now ask you all to refer to me as Jeff Ascendant, okay?
Does no one in this fictional universe question the suit? I mean, not one superpowered person is like, no, thanks, I’m comfy in these sweats?
This would be my time to shine, since I have the unearned confidence of a rodeo clown.
See what I did there? This is why I once got paid to write something, long ago.
Don’t ask.
I mean, The Void is cool, but he does sort of look like someone just dialed down the contrast and brightness, you know?
To be fair, that’s what I’m almost always saying.