The MCU has been on a downward spiral for a while now but there’s some hope that things might be looking up with a new plan building up to the next big Avengers mega crossover. To be honest I don’t really care that much but I still wanted to catch this one in the cinema because of the Malaysia setting and because I knew that the theme here is mental illness. I’m pleased to report that this is one of the better MCU films with decent action scenes and actually does have a story to tell. It could have been better in many ways, such as being more specific about the mental ailments the characters suffer from and it tiptoes around wrongdoing on the part of the US government. But it’s not bad at all and so makes for a worthy entry into the MCU.

On a mission in Malaysia to destroy a secret laboratory, Yelena Belova struggles with a feeling of purposelessness and guilt over the many atrocities she has committed. She is working for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, the current CIA director who is being impeached for her involvement in illegal research by conducted by the O.X.E. group. She agrees to one last mission to destroy all remaining evidence at an O.X.E. facility and there encounters John Walker, Ava Starr and the Taskmaster. They fight one another and Ava kills the Taskmaster but soon realize that de Fontaine wants them to eliminate each other. Then they notice a man who calls himself Bob and appears to be a clueless civilian in the vault. As the group cooperates to escape the death trap, de Fontaine realizes that Bob is the last of the test subjects of her project to create a superhuman after the rest died. The insecure and anxious Bob clumsily distracts the guards while the others escape and displays superpowers when he is shot. Meanwhile Bucky Barnes is now a congressman looking into de Fontaine and the Red Guardian is a limousine driver. Both are pulled into part of the group while de Fontaine rebrands Bob as the all powerful superhero the Sentry.

So this is ensemble movie composed of supporting characters and rehabilitated villains from other works. It was always a good question how they were going to make it work with such relatively unknown characters and their solution was simply to make it a Yelena and Bob movie. The others are just along for the ride, with Ava Starr in particular not getting any real moment to shine at all. The group doesn’t even truly form until the end of the film so we don’t even get the moments of camaraderie. Yet by being so focused and knowing what it wants to achieve, it mostly does work. The traditional Marvel quips work especially well here. As the members actually dislike one another, the insults have more bite than usual. The film uses a darker color palette than the usual MCU fare and I enjoyed the fight scenes. As Yelena remarks, they’re a terrible team who can mainly just punch and hit and so that’s what they do. They’re not very powerful, being barely above street-level at best, and the beatdown they get at the hands of the Sentry is satisfying to watch. The trailers have already spoiled the Void form of the new character and it honestly is one of the most terrifying villains to appear in the MCU.

Marvel rightfully deserves praise for putting mental health at the center of this film and many fans have claimed that Bob is a character they can relate to. It’s not just Bob’s apparent bipolar disorder and Yelena’s crushing loneliness. We also see the Red Guardian cruising through life without having a purpose and Walker using machismo as a cover for his own regrets and angst. Unfortunately it’s also in the Marvel DNA to touch upon sensitive topics and then decline to dig any deeper. They refuse to specifically name Bob’s illness and stops short of saying the word ‘suicide’. There’s a moment when he starts to exhibit megalomania but then they stop short of showing him as being too crazy. Similarly the film pulls its punches when it comes to calling government officials to account for wrongdoing. At the beginning, we see Bucky and other congressmen working to impeach de Fontaine but at the end nothing comes of it. I can’t help but think that Disney decided to go easy on the political side in light of what is going on currently in the US. Thunderbolts* might be decent as a superhero film but it had the potential of being a great one and just chose not to.

I’m still deciding whether to watch each of the MCU films on a case by case basis but I’d happily say that this is one film that is worth watching without reservation. It’s silly to think that the Sentry was born in a secret laboratory in the middle of Kuala Lumpur and Yelena somehow had to access it by jumping from the Merdeka 118 building but I still got a kick out of the references. I also liked that it alludes to other films inside and outside of the franchise. De Fontaine is being presented as an evil version of Nick Fury. Walker uses Captain America’s “on your left” line. Bucky riding to the rescue on a motorcycle was surely channeling Terminator. This is a well-made, carefully thought out film. It’s just a pity that their corporate overlords made certain that they didn’t overreach.