By now, Sebastian Stan knows the drill around being in a Marvel movie about as well as anyone. Serving as the always conflicted Bucky Barnes across 9 movies, Stan brings along the more grounded, military/spy portion of the Marvel Universe about as well as anyone. His tortured-anti-hero (at times)-nee- newly-minted-member of the House of Representatives to Thunderbolts*, but he’s not the star here.

That honor goes to Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, survivor of the Widow program, adopted daughter of the Soviet Super Soldier Red Guardian, Adopted sister to Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow of Course), and since her death, the Black Widow in the MCU. Pugh brings a mix of humor and vulnerability to the character, much more so than any of her other appearances. Reeling from the death of her sister during the events of Avengers Endgame, Belova has spent some time in the employ of Valentina Allegra De Fontaine (the ageless Julia Louis-Dreyfus), now the head of the CIA (morally corrupt officials in charge, in a case of art imitating life I suppose) I know that bit on Dreyfus sounded like press release bullshit but come on. Julia is 64 and she looks as good as she did on SNL in her 20s and Seinfeld in her 30s. Kiss my ass if you disagree.

Back to the movie. Like Belova, all the ‘Bolts have done questionable things. They get thrown together initially by De Fontaine who is trying to clear out her skeletons during an impeachment investigation, and throws each on at another in a nesting doll of assassinations. It doesn’t work, our heroes meet up with Bob (Lewis Pullman), escape the sitch, get saved by Red Guardian (David Harbour), and then by Barnes. Bob’s your uncle and turns out to be a character called Sentry, a pastiche of Superman, who harbors a dark side.

This all leads up to a final confrontation with De Fontaine and eventually an ending you probably saw coming in hindsight but should be delighted by when you see the movie.

This movie spends a lot of its time on the trauma each character has endured or inflicted on themselves. It’s not such a revolutionary theme as I think some reviews have wanted it to be. Marvel, going back to the 60s, has prided itself on the angsty, “JEEEEZUS I carry a lot of baggage” schtick for it’s heroes. From Spidey and his power and great responsibility mantra to anti-heroes like Venom or Magneto having to answer for their crimes and live with themselves. It’s done here somewhat effectively though you have a leg up with Yelena if you watched the Hawkeye series on Disney +.

The character who gets shorted here is Ghost. She is never as developed as any of the other characters (short of Taskmaster- which- why?) but Hannah John-Kamen does great with the bit she is given. It is too bad they could not have used her a bit more effectively than just as a foil for US Agent, but you don’t go to these movies for a lot of in depth character arcs either.

The action is done well, the effects seemed good. Not rushed, or skimpy. I liked that the action pieces were not the center of the film, especially at the end when up against Bob. It wasn’t exactly a revolutionary point, but it was nice to see them not try and take essentially a non or only slightly superhuman group and have them take on a god not with some sort of deus ex machina or gadget, but really by way of the central theme of who we are to ourselves, who we are to others, and the pain we all hold based upon our life experiences. It’s not perfect, but it was suited to the story they were telling.

The movie has a lot going for it. I think it was a bigger return to form for Marvel than expected. It certainly made me excited because we know these characters turn up again in Avengers: Doomsday. That’s cool. I think they have more story to tell as a team, and as individuals in the MCU.

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