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‘Thunderbolts*’ Review: That Mysterious Asterisk Masks the Real Reason to Watch These Six Marvel Rejects
Florence Pugh leads a group of D-list antiheroes in a film that relies on deep knowledge of obscure characters to make sense of the MCU going forward.
It may star six characters you either forgot about or couldn’t name if your life depended on it, but going forward, you’ll be expected to know who they are and could be quizzed on events that happen in “Thunderbolts” at any time — starting with the asterisk that appears after the title, and the explanation which rewards opening-weekend audiences with spoiling for everyone who catches up with it late. Meanwhile, that sound you hear isn’t the hype engine, which Disney’s marketing department has ginned up on social media, but the bottom of the barrel being dredged as Marvel Studios exploits a handful of D-list characters before rebooting its proven and most popular heroes (à la upcoming “Fantastic Four” movie). At the core of the film is a villain whom we ought not name — marketing materials have been referring to him simply as “the Void” — but whose dark powers, allegedly “stronger than all of the Avengers rolled into one,” are suggested in the opening seconds (when a shadow passes over the Marvel Studios logo, rendering the flickering-pulp letters an ominous matte black).
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