Here at Hypertext we don’t really believe in the term “superhero fatigue”. It’s a sentiment bandied about by those who lack the vocabulary to properly express what they don’t like. No the truth is that there’s a “bad movie fatigue” that is very real and, due to superhero properties being so popular, the two kind of get squashed together into this oversimplification.

This is the same realm of “fatigue” over movies and shows that use a multiverse in some way. There’s endless discussions about this and why people want it to stop, but we bet that when the new Spider-Verse movie finally comes out everyone who was making those complaints will be there on opening night.

So, why bring this up in a prelude to Thunderbolts? Well it’s because even Disney itself seems to be aware of the fatigue discussions. The marketing for Thunderbolts has gone out of its way to be different and to try and paint this movie as some bold new direction for superhero movies in general.

Hell one of the trailers – which you can watch below – is even a direct reference to Martin Scorsese and a meme he appears in.

So now that we’ve seen Thunderbolts, is it just another assembly line superhero flick that feeds into the faux fatigue discussions, or has it really done something incredibly special and reinvented the genre?

Eh, neither, really.

We’re not coming at you from a middle of the road, fence sitter position, but Thunderbolts (to ruin the rest of the review) is just a good superhero movie that falls short of being exceptional.

“In ‘Thunderbolts*’ Marvel Studios assembles an unconventional team of antiheroes—Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster and John Walker. After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, these disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts. Will this dysfunctional group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and unite as something much more before it’s too late?” reads the description of the movie.

From this description, and the movie itself as it gets going, we already kind of know what to expect. The trope of “the antiheroes get together to save the day” has been done so many times in movie form alone that the premise itself really has no surprises.

We won’t spoil the rest of the plot outside of this outline but Thunderbolts has nothing too new to show us in the writing department. If you’ve seen movies before you can almost certainly extrapolate the story here after the first third of the movie.

But here’s what you have to keep in mind: everything about the plot, production and overall assembly of this movie is incredibly solid. Sure we know what to expect, but director Jake Schreier, the production team and the cast are all consummate professionals who know what they’re doing.

Sure both the dialogue and story were predictable, but at least it was fun to watch and absorb. Thunderbolts is just a good time to take in passively but even then you may find some holes, especially with its main theme of happiness and fulfilment which the script completely fumbles in the third act.

As always we have to mention CGI and audio mixing which has become a sore spot for all Hollywood productions. The effects here are good – there’s nothing that stands out (either positively or negatively) and a decent amount of the movie was either accomplished for real, something confirmed by behind the scenes content, or it has CGI that is subtle enough to be completely believable.

The audio mix fairs worse. Lots of dialogue is inaudible, made more difficult to understand because of certain bad accents. We’re still pining for widespread subtitles in theatres.

The cast and how they bring the Thunderbolts to life is centred around Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova. She is the de facto focus character in the movie which is a real shame because the creative team at Marvel keep insisting she continues with that awful Russian accent.

By making her the star of the show a lot of the film’s heartfelt and philosophical moments are shattered by an accent that sounds like a gag more than anything else. Pugh is fighting for her life in a lot of scenes and we couldn’t take any of it seriously. Really, kudos to her for making us care about Yelena, her plight and her struggles to make a team of these disparate characters.

Thankfully some of the cast were around to pick up the slack, most notably newcomer Lewis Pullman as Bob. He is the second string in this story and he really nails the performance of a shattered individual who is always having the worst day of his life. Of all the team members here we hope we see more of him in the future.

The rest of the cast is a mixed bag. David Harbour as Red Guardian, Wyatt Russel as John Walker and especially Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine are all joys to watch, even though Red Guardian gets way too much screen time and chances to be loud as some kind of punchline.

Unfortunately we have less kind words to say for the rest who either fade into the background or were noticeably not great. We were especially disappointed in Sebastian Stan who seems bored with being The Winter Soldier. Some may say that’s part of his character, but his incredulous nature and “annoyed old timer” demeanour has been written and acted out better in many other MCU movies. More screentime would have helped him too.

That “absolute cinema” trailer above is a perfect microcosm for this movie has a whole: it’s well put together, self-aware and fun to watch. There’s a tonne of talented people both in front of and behind the camera too, but all of this coalesces in a movie that just scrapes the surface of being great. It’s a real shame as one or two different decisions in the script, acting or set pieces could have propelled this into the upper tiers of the MCU, but maybe next time.

Thunderbolts* does get a lot of points back for nailing some of its themes and overall objectives like found family, doing the right thing for the sake of it and toughing it out when everything falls down – all staples of the superhero genre that we love so much but people claim to be fatigued with. As Nick Fury once said: “The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could”. The Thunderbolts are the truest manifestation of this since the original Avengers.

FINAL SCORE: 7 OUT OF 10.