KSL Movie Show review: ‘Thunderbolts*’ marks a return to fun Marvel movies

Editor’s note: This is an editorial piece. An editorial, like a news article, is based on fact but also shares opinions. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and are not associated with our newsroom.

My first reaction after seeing “Thunderbolts*” was ‘thank goodness they actually made a fun Marvel movie again.’

My second thought was, ‘what’s with the asterisk?’ After I found out; I mused, ‘okay, no big deal.’

If you really want to know, check out the international poster for “Thunderbolts*.” It’s footnoted at the bottom, but again I thought the reason was fairly obvious – and I still didn’t care. Enough on that.

Related: KSL Movie Show review: ‘The Wedding Banquet’ is worth the effort

So I guess you can partially thank “The Guardians of the Galaxy” for providing the impetus for “Thunderbolt’s” origins, as these filmmakers decided, ‘hey, people really liked that bunch of anti-heroes, why not do something similar with another group of rag tag misfits?’

But make no mistake, this film centers on Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) as an exhausted agent for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s CIA (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Yelena accomplishes all her off-the-books missions, but in her down time, she’s bored, alone and depressed.

She even expresses it to Valentina, who is on the hot seat with Congress, saying she’s ready to quit, but agrees to do one more assignment. She’s sent to Utah, where it looks like there’s a secret experiments lab built into a mesa at Dead Horse Point. (What? The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is gonna freak!)

Anyway, her job is to eliminate a troublemaker and scoot.

Unfortunately, all the other misfit toys have gathered to do the same thing to each other, as Valentina is going scorched earth on her clandestine projects to protect her powerful position. Included on this burn list is the disgraced Captain America, John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) and some amnesia victim named Bob (Lewis Pullman).

More from KSL Movie Show: ‘Snow White’ is delightedly heartfelt and stays true to beloved original

So obviously they must work together to somehow escape this death trap, otherwise, this is going to be a rather quick movie.

Eventually, they do team up with Congressman Barnes, Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and Alexei Shostakov, Red Guardian (David Harbour) calling themselves the Thunderbolts, named after Yelena’s grade-school soccer team that never won a game. See, they know how to have fun.

The mysterious Bob turns out to be a force to be reckoned with, but his own sadness and depression leads him and the Thunderbolts to deal with traumatic events that shaped their formative years. This film has a heavy lean into mental health issues, which I thought was an interesting direction to take, away from the normal bullets and bravado in previous MCU movies.

Mix this earnest attempt to connect on a more emotional level, with the good-natured teasing and goofing around and I felt much more engaged with these people than I have with other more recent Marvel offerings.

For me, “Thunderbolts*” works well, and as per usual, stick around for both mid- and end closing credits scenes that have some significance to future MCU endeavors.

But a sigh of relief as, at least for now, they seem to somewhat back on the right track.

**********

“Thunderbolts*” (B+) Rated PG-13 for strong violence, language, thematic elements, and some suggestive and drug references. Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lewis Pullman, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell and Hannah John-Kamen. Directed by Jake Schreier (“Robot & Frank” “Paper Towns” and TV series “Beef’) – filmed in Atlanta, Utah and Kuala Lumpur. Running time: 126 minutes.

The KSL Movie Show with Andy Farnsworth and Steve Salles airs Fridays on KSL NewsRadio from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Follow the show on Facebook, and join The KSL Movie Show Club for exclusive perks by texting MOVIE to 57500. Message and data rates may apply. Text STOP to cancel. Message frequency varies.