Latest MCU entry is one of the franchise’s best entries in years, thanks to well-done storytelling, action sequences and humor

The stumbling, overstuffed Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn’t exactly been batting 1.000 since 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.” A few outliers aside (“Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home”), most of the latest releases have been mediocre attempts to recapture the halcyon glory of earlier years. (I’m still upset by how lackluster “Captain America: Brave New World” was.) Thankfully, I can’t say the same about “Thunderbolts*,” which delivers an earnest (if at times saccharine) examination of grief, loneliness and regret bookended by fantastically kinetic action sequences and delightfully bone-dry humor. 

“Thunderbolts*,” directed by Jake Schreier from a screenplay by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, is fundamentally about connections: those we lose, but more importantly, those we make, and how the latter help us become better versions of ourselves. It’s a little heavy-handed with that message at times, tipping over from inspiring to cheesy, but it’ll make you want to cheer all the same. 

And the ragtag group of antiheroes at the heart of “Thunderbolts*” need all the cheering they can get, because as CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (a comically over-the-top Julia Louis-Dreyfus) caustically puts it, they’re “anti-social tragedies in human form.” Avengers of old they are not. To even call them a team would be generous. 

Read the full review at The Seattle Times.