A refreshing blow after Marvel Mistes: NPR

Marvel team consolidation exerciseThunderbolts * – The asterisk is one of its title for reasons that I let you discover – is a decent mixture of unsuitable mercenaries and pop psychology. After a series of failures from the Marvel cinematographic universe, it is at least a relief.

It starts with Yelena, whom we met a few years ago as a spiritual brother of Black Widow, decidedly in depth. Or rather, as a speech Cole Porter it, “in the depths of the 90th floor”.

She stands on the roof of a skyscraper, looking at a hoof and reflecting that there is something that does not go with her … “A void, a void.”

Then she leaves the edge, clearly drops to her death because she does not fly.

Then a wave of black fabric appears.

“Or maybe I get bored,” she thinks and parachute parachinates until her last mission-something to do with the destruction of a laboratory in Malaysia. He do Wait it, even when things are fine.

Yelena, played with a Downbeat charisma by Florence Pugh, simply did not feel realized. And the types mainly of the types with which it will not get into a battle of life or death either. Even the pure and hard fans of Marvel may not recognize them right away – Ghost (Hannah John Kamen), who can dematerialize to get out of jams; Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), which is a very good imit; John Walker (Wyatt Russell), who is, as Yelena says, a “Dimetain Captain America”; and a dairy and confused laboratory patient (Lewis Pullman) named Bob. (I must say that I found it instantly relatable; I don’t know why.)

All these people have been damaged by infantile trauma – a fact that will be at the heart of the following – but that does not mean that they cannot assemble two and two. They deduce that they were all sent to what is equivalent to a Deathtrap, and once they understood who sent them, they head directly – finally, with a lot of colorful detours – for the office of the CIA director brought into accusation but uncertain of Julia Louis -Dreyfus.

“You are all so adorable,” she said. “Just think, I send you there to kill yourself, and instead, you do well and you train a team.”

The training is what the film is talking about. Bob, I am happy to say, turns out to have a lot to do with his harmful patterns. For the journey, Yelena’s father (David Harbor, very funny), who is both a limousine driver and the so-called red guardian.

Another old boyfriend presents himself who is Captain America-Adjacer: Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), winter soldier who has become-frosthman-congressman. It is, as Harbor notes at some point, “very cool”.

Cool, but also damaged in a film that takes bruised psychiations as seriously as the trajectories of idle bullets. It may seem strange for a superhero epic, but director Jake Schreier, better known for the Netflix Road-Tage series Beefgives meaning to that. He and his team built Thunderbolts * Around digital but also emotional pyrotechnics.

During all the time, they spend dodging buildings that explode and save unhappy New Yorkers, the characters remain stubbornly convinced that they are not heroic, which is a little refreshing, really.

“I derive”, deplores Yelena. “I have no goal.”

You could also say that about Marvel lately. And although it is never wise to read too much in the navel based on the characters, after three dozen MCU films, this little self -awareness in Thunderbolts * is undeniably welcome.