The never ending MCU train has hit a few bumps on the road with the last few of their projects. The new Captain America was ill-conceived and drab; Deadpool & Wolverine lacked any semblance of soul; and no one saw The Marvels (for good reason). They’re in need of a surefire hit to steady the ship before the juggernaut of Avengers movies that’ll be coming to our screens soon, so what a lovely surprise it is that Thunderbolts* is that hit!

Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) is struggling with life in the years following her sister Natasha Romanoff’s death, doing mercenary work for the quietly sinister CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). When de Fontaine is seemingly going to be impeached by congress, she sends all of her various mercenaries into a trap to kill each other, not expecting them to team up and escape, coming after her instead.

A back to basics approach to storytelling does wonders for this simple yet effective action flick. It takes a page out of DC’s Suicide Squad where you have this rag-tag group of unwanted heroes/villains that, when put together, create a very compelling team. Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), for example, was utterly forgettable in the already forgettable Antman & The Wasp, but here her powers feel a lot more interesting. John Walker (Wyatt Russell) also felt like a poorly written part of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier but here the comedic bouncing off of his character and everyone else works very well. The film very much feels like a ‘one mans trash, another mans treasure’ kind of situation and that adds effectively to the themes of depression and loneliness that hide beneath the surface.

Florence Pugh is already a great actress in pretty much all of the roles she’s in so it’s no surprise that she is the stand out as the lead in this feature. If you are looking for someone to anchor the next phase of Marvel on then you won’t be able to find anyone better than Pugh, I just hope this doesn’t stop her from choosing challenging roles in films such as We Live in Time. The other surprising stand out was Lewis Pullman as Bob/Sentry, he injects that simple humour that is needed to let those early scenes flow, whilst also providing the necessary dramatic elements later on. Would love for him to be a staple of the future of the MCU as well.

Visually is feels good to see an MCU film that actually shoots on location instead of the horrible bland green screen backgrounds we’ve been seeing a lot lately. For the first time in a long time it felt like they actually were on the streets of New York or actually in Malaysia, incredibly refreshing and I hope the positive reception encourages the producers to continue this trend. The score by Son Lux is very good as well, not just a normal plain old score that we heard in Captain America  but instead a score that pushes the boundaries a little, just like our titular heroes.

Overall, Marvel finally made a perfectly decent action film, skilfully made us care about characters we had completely forgotten about, and director Jake Schreier made the best looking MCU film in years. Please continue with this trajectory and we can finally get back to looking forward to each and every release.