Thunderbolts*: What is the new Marvel worth?

More interested in the interiority of its super (anti-) heroes than by pure juice, more similar-pixar than twelve bastards, the new episode of the MCU brush a portrait of an endearing group, propelled by the always excellent Florence Pugh.

This is the end of phase 5 of the MCU. A relief, this one having especially been marked by the commercial disappointments and the artistic Bérézina, ofAnt-man and the wasp: Quantumania has The Marvels. Thunderbolts* Was less place as a final bouquet than counter-programming, by portraying a bunch of super-specially identified super-enclosure of the general public, hero of a feature film teased by the promo for several weeks as an “indie film A24”. But we have learned at least since Suicide Squad by David Ayer (another film of masked mercenaries on mission commando kamikaze) to be wary as the plague of these false film advertising promises which lead to wind.

We are nevertheless quickly reassured by Thunderbolts*who does not try to play it Twelve bastards From the poor, but immediately imposes his tone, both ironic and melancholy, by arranging the black ideas and death impulses of Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), super-assassin bereaved by the death of her sister Natasha Romanoff (the Black Widow previously played by Scarlett Johansson), and who will try to find a sense in his life and which will try to find a sense By associating with a band of adventurers dupped by the Machiavellian Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus): an ex-Soviet-hero-hero cherishing the memory of his omnipotence (the Red Guardian played by David Harbour), this good old Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), the “Captain America in cardboard “ John Walker (Wyatt Russell), etc. Will they succeed in triumphing saving solidarity and collective effort rather than self-destructive individualism? No, we will not spoil.

The way in which the film holds its intimate and bluesy note is largely due to the investment of Florence Pugh, which makes its character exist beyond the imposed figures and the lines of mechanical dialogue-an actor who meets a character, it is basically the key to the MCU since the first Iron Man. And the Réal ‘Jake Schreier, through it, manages to sign a film that harmoniously fits into its own filmo, made of nice SF fables (Robot & Frank) and Netflix products knowing how to capture the air of the time (Fierce). The aesthetics are that of an action/espionage film full of government paranoid and international barbouzerie (in the line of Captain Americaof Winter soldier has Brave New World), but Schreier is especially comfortable in the small steps. When he films his group of mercenaries escaping from a underground bunker who threatens to be their tomb, he shows them comically defying the laws of gravity, closer to Woody and his friends in a Toy storyor Cartoon acrobatics of Ethan Hunt, only superstars of the MCU.

And when, in the last act of the film, New York is threatened by the big villain (well-introduced character, and having a power of destruction of a fairly elegant graphic purity), Schreier seeks less to compete with the mythological and grandiloquent sequence plans Avengers of Whedon that to grow his time spent working alongside Michel Gondry on the series Kidding : and there are sudden the Thunderbolts propelled in a mental labyrinth half-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mindmid-Everything Everywhere All at Once – Where we understand better what the promo meant by speaking of an A24 feeling.

The problem, as often in Marvel, is that well sketched this a little “daring” aesthetic road trip (at least unexpected), the film immediately returns to its rails – in the same way that each dramatic moment of the film is offset by a noisy intervention by David Harbor, very tense in Relief Comic fragrant with vodka and clichés. We get out of Thunderbolts* By having the feeling of having once seen an intercalaire episode of the MCU, certainly elegantly swarmed, but which is mainly used to prevail the universe, plug the air holes and announce the following film. It’s good, are we ready? Can serious things (re) start? Come on, send the fantastic 4!

Thunderbolts*by Jake Schreier, with Florence Pugh, David Harbor, Lewis Pullman … in theaters on April 30.