Director: Jake Schreier

Stars: Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lewis Pullman, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen, Olga Kurylenko, Geraldine Viswanathan, Wendell Pierce

Not quite the knockabout lark mooted by the trailers, the latest Marvel outing admirably strives for something deeper but is undone by structural issues.

When we catch up with assassin Yelena Belova (Pugh) she is still mourning the death of her adoptive sister Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow. She is also estranged from her dad Alexei Shostakov (Harbour) aka ex-Soviet superhero Red Guardian, who is now running a tacky limousine company.

Yelena is sent by CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Louis-Dreyfuss playing a darker version of her Selina from Veep), who is currently being threatened with impeachment for illegal operations, to a secret facility for a mission. There, Yelena encounters three fellow low-tier superheroes: disgraced Captain America John Walker (Russell); the invisibility & intangibility-powered Ghost (John-Kamen); and lethal Russian agent Taskmaster (Kurylenko). Also there, is a troubled young man, bathetically referred to as ‘Bob’ (Pullman).

It eventually dawns on the bickering band that they have been set up by de Fontaine to kill each other, in order to hide any evidence of Valentina’s more dubious activities and spare her from impeachment. They decide to band together to escape. Meanwhile Alexei has become aware of de Fontaine’s plan and resolves to help his daughter.

The initial bickering, redolent of other ragtag band films like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and The Suicide Squad is amusing enough, mainly thanks to Pugh’s wry asides. Director Jake Schreier is no stranger to squabbling having helmed the hit Netflix series ‘Beef’. David Harbour’s needily vainglorious Alexei is also fun, and father and daughter exhibit a touching rapport.

The mood gives way to something darker and more thoughtful as the focus turns to the troubled Bob and his place in de Fontaine’s scheme. The murky cinematography from Andrew Droz Palermo, who worked on David Lowery’s ‘Green Night’ and ‘Ghost Story’, along with the score from experimental band Son Lux, chime with the more sombre atmosphere as the script muses on trauma and depression. It’s a commendable effort to do something more substantive than a CGI punch-up but saggy editing brings a sense of inertia the film never really recovers from. A tantalising post-credits scene will have fans chomping at the bit for the next phase.

Thunderbolts* out now

David Willoughby

Follow David on Bluesky @davidwilloughby.bsky.social