Going into Thunderbolts* I was a tiny bit concerned that not seeing the previous Marvel Movie, Captain America: Brave New World, might be a problem.
Fortunately, if you've seen the trailer to that film, you mostly have all you need to understand the brief references to it here.
The bigger issue you may bump up against is not really knowing who any of this team is, if you haven't been watching every Marvel movie or TV series. The movie is counting on you at least knowing who Yolena (Florence Pugh), Bucky (Sebastian Stan), and Red Guardian (David Harbour) is to draw you into seeing the film.
It is kind of a better experience if you know who John Walker - Captain America Lite (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr - Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Antonia Dreykov - Task Master (Olga Kurylenko) are but there is enough backstory given, to at least place them in context of the wider MCU as misfits.
Having said that, the story really lends itself to filling in the backstory on almost all of them, without any really clunky exposition, so by the end you do actually care about all of their futures in the MCU.
In Thunderbolts* the team are unwittingly brought together, and realize everything is not as it seems. To find the truth they agree to work together to bring down a common enemy, who has big plans for superhero superiority.
This is my kind of Marvel movie in the sense that it focuses more on characters and their stories rather than action. To be sure, there is plenty of action in the film - and I do want my Marvel movies to have action - but the characters and story come first.
It also focuses more on the side of the MCU that sprung out of Black Widow and Hawkeye's backstory, where you have larger than life characters that aren't really superheroes in the classic sense. Particularly here, where this whole team is more anti-hero than hero. People with questionable histories. That's my favorite part of the MCU.
The main cast of Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, and David Harbour continue to deliver and build upon their characters. If you are a fan of them from past films and TV shows, this movie is a must for you.
Even better is, if you weren't such a big fan of Wyatt Russell's Captain America, or Hannah John-Kamen's Ghost, they may just win you over here. Both get more endearing character development than they ever really got in their original outings.
You may even find yourself caring about Lewis Pullman's Bob A.K.A. Sentry by the end too.
This is also the most we've seen of Julia Lewis-Dreyfus' Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (unless she had a big part to play in Captain America: Brave New World that I'm not aware of) and really have the extent of her operations laid out for us, showing why she really isn't someone you want to be on the wrong side of.
For the most part, I really enjoyed Thunderbolts*. There were a few minor problems that I was happy to run with because... superhero movie. While I was mostly happy with how the movie is resolved, it does kind of end suddenly at a very convenient press gathering.
However this is slightly softened by the extended, final post credit scene, which gives you plenty of information about what happened to the team after that sudden ending (though I feel this post credit scene is a bit of a spoiler for an upcoming MCU film, depending upon how much you've been following that film's trailers).
This is definitely one of the better Marvel movies of late. Even though I've heard the script went through some major rewrites after it started filming, it still comes together and works as a coherent story told relatively well.
If you like misfit characters, or are a Bucky, Yolena, or Red Guardian fan, this is well worth your time.
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