Luck with an asterisk: "Thunderbolts*" began to be shown in Russian cinemas
The film "Thunderbolts *" is leading the foreign box office, and critics call it one of the best Marvel films and the main blockbuster since "Avengers: Endgame" in 2019. In Russia, the film is shown from May 12 to pre-screening, with 10 to 14 daily screenings scheduled in some metropolitan cinemas. Izvestia was among the first to watch an unexpected hit, the authors of which relied on superheroes of Russian origin — Elena Belova and Alexei Shostakov.
What's the new movie about?
"Thunderbolts*" is not just an unexpected spring blockbuster, but also the first undisputed success of Marvel Studios in several years. Kevin Feige, president of the company and chief producer of the Marvel Cinematic Universe film franchise, noted that Disney had used a new approach for the film and it had borne fruit.
Over the years, the Marvel universe has faced a series of commercial and audience failures: "Captain Marvel 2", "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantomania", "The Eternals", "Captain America: New World" and other films have shown disappointing movie collections and, as a result, significantly reduced audience interest in superheroics. as well as the fees of actors who prefer raincoats and latex jumpsuits.
At the same time, the Marvel cinematic universe has already begun to suffer from a continuous pipeline, causing frustration and, at best, misunderstanding among most eyewitnesses. It has 36 released films and 13 TV series connected by a single plot and often by common characters. Obviously, viewers have long been either confused or tired of following so much content. In this sense, the novelty is especially important — it completes the storyline of the so-called fourth phase of the cinematic universe, which lasted from February 2023 to May 2025. But at the same time, you don't have to watch dozens of previous TV series and movies to watch it. Everything is clear almost from the first frames: who is bad and what to do with it.
As the head of Disney, Bob Iger, notes, in recent years the company has forced creative studios, including Marvel, to work to the limit and produce much more projects than necessary. But now Disney understands that quantity is not equal to quality. Therefore, using the example of "Thunderbolts*", the studio tested a new strategy: it consolidated Marvel's efforts and focused them on high-quality feature films. Bob Iger was very pleased with the film, which has already grossed close to $300 million.
The secret of the success of "Thunderbolts *" is in the stellar ensemble and the simplest possible plot, which, however, fades into the background and instantly becomes unimportant due to the chemistry of the actors' interaction on the screen and constant gags. Director Jake Schreyer, known for such TV series as Shameless, Squabble and Star Wars: The Support Team, did not reinvent the wheel — he followed the path of James Gunn, who created two parts of Suicide Squad for Marvel's main competitor, the DC Universe. In other words, he told a story about how people hate each other at first, try to kill each other, and after an hour of timekeeping they are already hugging each other in a bar over a glass of frothy and promise to look out for each other with reservations in the spirit of "even though you are a blockhead."
Instead of bloody scenes and dark storytelling, jokes for millennials and a one—sentence plot. Several losers and retired "superpowers" with no discernible superpowers are forced to team up against a laboratory mutant with bipolar disorder who literally dissolves half of New Yorkers, almost like Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. Fortunately for the kids, there are no shocking episodes in the spirit of the aforementioned movie or last year's "Deadpool and Wolverine" here. This means that the age rating quite understandably occupies the slot "for children over 13 years old" — the adolescent psyche is guaranteed to remain safe.
Why watch "Thunderbolts*"
Jake Schreyer has created a convincing analogue of the Suicide Squad 2021, with slightly caricatured but charming Russians. The producers of the film took a bold step, which they had already taken in 2021 in the movie "Black Widow", making Russians the main characters.
Florence Pugh ("Lady Macbeth," "Little Women") and David Harbour ("Stranger Things," "Hellboy") confidently steal screen time. Both are characters with pronounced accents and Russian roots. They are also united by the fact that this is far from a debut in the Marvel cinematic universe for everyone, and the actors understand the tasks and competencies of their characters well. Therefore, it soon becomes clear that Pew's heroine, Elena Belova, deserves the title of leader of a new team of ex-losers more than anyone else. In 2022, the actress won the prestigious Critics' Choice Award for her role as Belova in Black Widow.
Belova's dialogues with her father, Shostakov, aka the Red Guardian, are especially hilarious.:
— Elena, there is no higher calling than being a hero. Your sister knew something about it.
— No, Dad, it's all fairy tales.
At the same time, Olga Kurylenko, a model and actress of Soviet origin, is given almost a few seconds of timekeeping, without even showing us her face. However, it turns out to be justified in the plot, and the screenwriter does not want to turn the spectacle into an analog of "Anora" about Russians in the USA.
Russian footprints
There were also stereotypes about compatriots: one of the characters was forcibly drunk with vodka from his throat just to show the audience this drink. In the cinema, this scene caused a confused hum. And the magic of the Russian accent in Florence Pugh's English speech also remained inaccessible to the audience — there are simply no cinemas with an English—language track in Moscow, and the traditional Kazakh dubbing for the CIS once again dispensed with Sergei Chikhachev, whom the audience loved for dubbing the "Red Guard" - the Soviet-Russian version of "Captain America". His place was taken by Vitaly Davydov from Alma Ata, as well as such Kazakh dubbing actors as Dinara Urbisinova and Shah Murat Ordabayev. As for the dubbing itself, the Kazakh actors did not distort the pronunciation of Russian words in the manner of Kar Karych from Smesharikov, and for someone such purism may become a problem. But the editors did not see this as an attempt to play up national traits where there are other ways to point out the Russian origin of the characters.
Fortunately for the untrained audience, the characters and their motivations are revealed through flashbacks, even if they missed previous performances by Belova and Shostakov. We will be shown the true fears of the characters, and a new villain for the film franchise is responsible for them — Darkness, a manifestation of the dark side of the Sentry, another "super".
Separately, we note the marketing campaign of the film, which 48 hours after the premiere screenings was renamed "* The New Avengers", cleverly using the "asterisk" symbol incomprehensible in the original title. In one of the viral videos, Sebastian Stan (in the film he plays the role of James "Bucky" Barnes) he puts up an updated version of the promo poster with an alternative name on the streets of the city.
Judging by the program for the coming week, cinemas have high expectations for the film amid the general lull in Hollywood blockbusters. "Thunderbolts*" has every chance to maintain audience interest among action movie fans until the summer release of "Ballerina," which is still scheduled for June 5, a day before the premiere in the United States.
"Thunderbolts *" is a rare example when Hollywood turned out to be cautious in box office forecasts, and the film attracted hype to spite all the ridicule. As Florence Pugh's character says in the film: "Don't we know how to do anything, even fly? Just hitting and shooting?". And even with such a set, the film, in fact, turned from another optional action "for the evening" into a resonant movie capable of provoking heated discussions on social networks and causing genuine emotions, including among those who have not yet reached the big screen, and watching the first really cheerful action movie from the team in several years. Kevin Feige is worth it in the movies.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
