2025's Thunderbolts* is a good Marvel movie. It's not one of the cobbled together cgi monstrosities like Ant-Man in Quantumania. The writing is relatively solid, though I had plenty of problems with the script. But I'm going to have to echo what just about every review is saying; the performances knock this one out of the park.
Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Lewis Pullman, but particularly Florence Pugh, turned this from a perfectly adequate Suicide Squad pastiche into something really extraordinary.
The film spends a lot of time ruminating on character and the writing isn't very insightful, it's even slightly insulting if you happen to be an introvert because it pushes the necessity of never being alone. But it has some nicely poetic turns, particularly with Sentry/Void who borrows pretty heavily from psychological anime like Evangelion and Akira. But the performances take this material about personal misery and disaffection and squeeze it for all its worth.
Wyatt Russell gets some nice subtle stuff as John Walker and in just a few scenes he's way more interesting than Sam Wilson. David Harbour proves once again he's the ultimate dad actor.
But Pugh, Pugh, Pugh! She's just so damned good. And I was going into the movie ready to criticise her terrible hairstyle. I don't give a damn about her hairstyle now. I even like her blue eyeliner. She's amazing. With a few subtle expressions, she brings across her state of profound ennui and when she needs to be raw and emotional she's like a young Marlon Brando; surprising yet thoroughly credible.
The performance make everything else work beautifully. I was afraid for the characters when cgi crap was flying everywhere, like it was real crap! This is one to see.
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