Note: The first section of this review is largely spoiler-free, but spoilers will be discussed here towards the end.

Thunderbolts* is billed as a return to form to the MCU – and to some extent it is; if we accept that the MCU was at best, mediocre to occasionally enjoyable as opposed to genre-defining. Director Jake Schreier (although with this sort of films, how much freedom he had is questionable) introduces us to a bunch of b and c listers from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that fans will only really be familiar with if they can say, remember Ant Man and the Wasp or Black Widow. Marvel’s phase five is full of reclamation projects of past failures – case in point, Captain America: Brave New World is a mismash of The Eternals and The Incredible Hulk – and this one is no different, riffing off The Suicide Squad for a paint-by-numbers team-building movie that lacks half the entertainment value or depth of Gunn’s sole DC feature film so far.

The film’s themes are broad. It’s about depression, mental health and well-being – shone through the eyes of Florence Pugh’s fantastic Yelena, the film’s saving grace and the one who leans absolutely into this role. It’s important for blockbusters to have these kinds of discussions even if they’re only surface level; and it’s still very much a Hollywood themed take on depression, wrapped up nicely in a bow by the last act. Much of the performances here are very hammy – David Harbour has some funny lines but very much playing a “bit” – and the idea of putting a bunch of characters who all just punch and shoot in the same room together is something that the film is aware of; but quickly grows tiresome – Ghost continues to be poorly served with character development wasting an excellent Hannah John-Kamen, and the film forgets that it has one of the greatest comedic actors of her generation – Julia Louis-Dreyfus, by painting her character as a one-note villain.

This is a film that is weirdly structured and it shows with its inconsistent pacing. The first act is where Thunderbolts* is at its peak; as the various characters find themselves in the middle of a secret base realising that they’ve all been sent to kill each other and that they’ve been set up by Dreyfus’ character. This establishes the flaws of them all nicely; has Yelena and her father reconnect well – and there’s also a good introduction for the fantastic Lewis Pullman; the real star of Thunderbolts*, playing Bob with a kind of awkward charm that hints at a hidden past. He’s played a Bob before in Top Gun Maverick and he stole the scene there; he shows that he’s got real talent in Thunderbolts* especially as much of the last act that works is because of his vulnerable, sheltered performance. The chemistry between Pullman and Pugh is great – and key to their dynamic working.

The dialogue feels corporate and paint-by-committee. There’s no natural flow in how the film progresses it just feels like it’s all too neatly structured for characters who are known for their imperfections. It should be messier, more flawed. The first act happens and then we’re bang into the third act, straight away, zero escalation or middle act – like Transformers: Rise of the Beasts which didn’t work for me. Furthermore nothing is resolved here; the ending feels entirely reductive of what has come before and undoes all the goodwill gained from the early start that establishes these characters and their tropes – I’m not talking about the bland mind palace Doctor Strange and Eternal Sunshine-riffs, but the ending with Valentina – it just feels all a tad forced. Because ultimately, Thunderbolts* is a Marvel film.

And like Wakanda Forever, it’s at its weakest when it tries to be a Marvel film – did we really need to return to Avengers Tower; a location that has been overused to death? The film is at its best when it’s far away from this literally operating in the middle of nowhere; the desert – the introduction of Bucky Barnes and his role early in the team in trying to assemble them figuring out how he can operate in a world where he’s running for politics.

It feels forced. Bucky is there again; for the Marvel connections and the familiarity, and also to look like he just stepped out of Mission Impossible 2. He doesn’t really add much to the team once he becomes slotted in; none of them do – even John Walker gets a solid first act but is relegated to largely a background character in the third. To his credit, Wyatt Russell – in a cast full of nepo-babies done good everywhere you look, is fantastic at playing such a punchable character who seems at odds with Yelena from the word go. The conflict is surface-level but fun. Once the film expands beyond the one-location thriller that offers a breath of fresh air in its first act and the locker-room trauma bonding survival struggles, it feels like your usual paint-by-numbers Marvel movie. It feels like a reinvention but it never is, the formula is still there, just painted differently. Better dialogue could’ve made this watchable but like most of the modern marvel cinematic universe, it’s not great – and it wasn’t brilliant to begin with.

What could’ve been something special descends to the punching and kicking action flick that offers nothing in the way of variety and by the end feels a bit too same-y. Harbour’s Russian accents feel like a bloated self-parody long before the third act and it wants to hone in on Yelena and Bob’s past trauma, but can’t escape the fact that ultimately has to be a Marvel movie and ends up feeling like it’s just rolled off the production line; casting aside any of the struggles of these characters to serve up a new team name and a giant advert for the next MCU film – Fantastic Four, coming out in two months. Maybe focusing on something more than just charm could have carried this film through to the end – but despite all it claims to do differently, Thunderbolts* doesn’t have anything new to say. In fact – it’s basically just a reskin of 2012’s Avengers under a different coat of paint.