Having "muscled countless independent films out of cinema screens", Marvel has had the "audacity" to promote the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise "as a big-budgeted film with the 'feel' of a low-budgeted one", said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent.
It even boasts, with a wink, that the film was made by a "crew of indie veterans who sold out" (many from indie production giant A24). Well, it's annoying in a way – but getting those people involved has paid off, because the film is pretty good. The titular Thunderbolts are "an ill-matched squad of antiheroes" drawn from previous Marvel films, who squabble at first but then bond over their shared PTSD: Florence Pugh, for instance, is back as Yelena Belova, still reeling from the death of her pseudo sister Black Widow, in "Avengers: Endgame". That is a fresh approach, and there is also a fresh appearance from Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a deliciously Machiavellian CIA director.
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