TMW #49: Thunderbolts*, Another Simple Favour, Andor
Plus the week's biggest new trailers
Greetings, fellow watchers*
*Yes, that is an oh-so-subtle Marvel reference, designed to lead into telling you that this week’s reviews are led by Thunderbolts*. Has lightning struck again for the MCU? Or is the outlook a bit dour? Read on and find out. Either way, it’s this week’s biggest cinema release, though things are looking starry on streaming with ‘mommy noir’ sequel Another Simple Favour and the latest trilogy of Andor S2 episodes.
We’ve got reviews of those plus our usual Wingman Recommends section, highlighting those worthy titles that might otherwise have passed you by in these content-churning times. We’re also giving you the heads up on coming attractions with our latest Trailer Club, featuring criminals posing as magicians, improv comedians posing as criminals and The Rock going indie.
If you fancy flying first-class Wingman, why not consider purchasing a monthly or yearly subscription? We can’t offer complimentary champagne, but plenty of fizzy film writing. It’s a long weekend in the UK, which means extra time to give us a like, a share, a restack or a comment, all of which we’d love 3000*. *Boy, we’re good at this.
Enjoy the newsletter, and we’ll see you on Tuesday for more Winged wisdom.
Matthew (Matt and Jordan)
Thunderbolts*
12A, in cinemas now
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
If we’re reductively summarising, this is effectively Marvel’s Suicide Squad, as a misfit band of mercenaries have to team up for job that, for whatever reason, the more straightforwardly heroic A-list heroes don’t want to take on. These guys aren’t the Avengers, and they know it. But it’s that underdog spirit - of both the characters, and the movie itself - that gives the latest MCU movie a lift, earning it a goodwill that some of the franchise’s recent entries have struggled to generate.
It’s an ensemble piece, but the de facto lead is Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova (Black Widow’s little sis), currently living a nomadic lifestyle as a freelance operative doing off-book dirtywork for CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) - an early, impressive action sequence has her on a mission to destroy a Malaysian science lab. When the unscrupulous Val needs to wipe her history of dodgy dealings ahead of an impeachment hearing, she tries to erase the red from her ledger by having all her hired guns meet in one secret compound, where they can be dealt with…
And so begins a reluctant union between Yelena, short-lived Captain America stand-in John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and Ant-Man and the Wasp antagonist Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), later joined by Winter Soldier-turned-congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and Yelena’s pa Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), with the mutual objectives of staying alive, bringing Val to justice, and working out what’s going on with the anxious young man, Bob (Lewis Pullman, a welcome addition), who they discover at the compound.
While it’ll obviously help if you’re clued in on the MCU stories that thread into this one - namely Black Widow, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - it’s a fairly lean set-up for a comic-book movie, and what follows is largely contained, both in terms of timespan and scope, and its all the more straightforwardly satisfying for it.
Director Jake Schreier (Robot & Frank, Netflix series Beef) plays to the ensemble’s strengths, and makes them a pretty likeable bunch to spend time with. Quippy bickering is in steady supply (with some belly laughs thrown in when Harbour’s on screen), and there’s also a decent smattering of pathos, too. Pugh ably does the majority of the emotional heavy-lifting with a couple of surprisingly touching moments, and the climax also takes a pretty big swing into uncharted territory for Marvel, and largely pulls it off.
Besides some occasional too-stretchy fighting with digital doubles, there’s actually a surprising commitment to practical effects that adds a bit of physical heft to an often weightless genre, and the action sequences feel thoughtfully put together - including a dramatically lit corridor scrap, and car/motorcycle/armoured-vehicle chase that knowingly nods to T2, Mission: Impossible 2 and The Dark Knight.
When the dust settles, Thunderbolts* won’t be revered alongside the very best comic-book movies, but it’s a cut above recent middling efforts like Captain America: Brave New World and The Marvels, and a promising sign that there’s still life in this cinematic universe yet. Impressively, for a film that is more lean and contained, it also manages to generate the most momentum for the wider saga that we’ve seen in some time. The MCU is getting its groove back - no asterisked caveats needed. (Matt Maytum)
IN SHORT: Thunderbolts* succeeds as both entertaining action flick and franchise rejuventator, with a winning cast smoothing over any shortcomings.
STAY FOR THE END CREDITS? Absolutely! You get mid-credits and post-credits scenes here (the latter being Marvel’s longest ever), as well as some story-essential artwork.
PHYSICAL MEDIA: Jake Schreier showed off his commitment to the practical effects in an Instagram post (that’s probably better watched after you’ve seen the movie, tbh).
Another Simple Favour
15, on Prime Video now
⭐⭐☆☆☆
Beware the comedy-thriller sequel bearing the word ‘another’: Another 48Hrs., Another Stakeout… Alas, here’s Another one that, like those long-forgotten follow-ups, reheats the same beats and doesn’t offer much takeaway beyond the pleasure of its topline stars’ reprising their banter-based dynamic.
If you haven’t seen the first Favour - released in 2018 - in a while, or even at all, don’t worry too much; the characters spend no small amount of time going over the events that led to the incarceration of Emily (Blake Lively), the murderous arch-manipulator who met her match in savvy suburban vlogger Stephanie (Anna Kendrick). Emily is now a free woman (somehow) and engaged to the ominously named, Mob-connected Dante (Michele Morrone). Even more ominously, she wants Stephanie (now a struggling true-crime author) to be her maid of honour at her OTT wedding in Capri.
Before long, of course, bodies are hitting the deck, and not just because of excessive martini consumption. But despite at least one eye-wateringly gruesome method of dispatch, there’s little sense of peril; and despite - or perhaps because of - some outlandish twists, even less sense of shock.
Made by the same team (director Paul Feig and writer Jessica Sharzer, this time co-scripting with Laeta Kalogridis), the original Favour similarly kept its tongue lodged in its cheek, but also felt relatively more grounded - and certainly more invested in character development. Stephanie has scarcely any arc to speak of this time; tougher and less susceptible than before, she’s already been through her defining rite of passage. Meanwhile, questions surrounding Emily’s behaviour receive long, drawn-out answers. As a suspense thriller, the leisurely two-hour runtime, padded with underused or surplus characters (compared with the original’s tight ensemble) doesn’t do Feig’s film many favours.
Still, Kendrick is as bright and personable as ever, and there is some of the old spark in her barbed exchanges with the swaggering Lively, who once again wears the hell out of a succession of chicly ridiculous outfits. The clothes show, plus other simple pleasures (like the scenery and some casually clever VFX work) make the tease of a third movie (One Last Favour?) not entirely disheartening. But the filmmakers are really going to have to go out of their way to restore the series to its former fresh, campy lustre. (Matthew Leyland)
MAID FOR EACH OTHER: Italian actor Michele Morrone will also appear in Feig’s other 2025 movie, The Housemaid. Adapted from Freida McFadden’s bestseller, the thriller stars Sydney Sweeney as the new domestic employee of a wealthy couple (Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar) with skeleton-ridden closets.
Andor S2
(Eps 4-6 out now, Disney+)
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
After being teased in last week’s opening triptych, Ghorman becomes a battleground for the future of the galaxy in Andor’s 3 BBY arc. Written by Beau Willimon (who penned the standout Narkina 5 episodes in season one) it’s a compelling French Resistance story told through a Star Wars lens, even if there’s a niggling sense that any true payoff is being held back for future weeks.
Leaping forward another year, episode 4 picks up with Andor and Bix hiding out on Coruscant. The fallout of an unseen mission has compounded Bix’s trauma – bad timing then for Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) to send Cassian to Ghorman to assess brewing tensions between the Empire and a local rebel cell in need of experienced strategists. On D’Qar, Wilmon finds himself working for a wild-eyed Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), now pushed to the brink of extremism. While back on Coruscant, Mon Mothma’s attempts to fight the Empire with diplomacy fall on deaf ears, and Luthen risks exposure at a party attended by Krennic.
Syril (Kyle Soller) also finds himself at the centre of the maelstrom here, tasked with infiltrating the rebel cell on Ghorman as a double agent for his Imperial paramour Dedra. While many were quick to point out the parallels between Andor’s encroaching Imperial tyranny and America’s rapid descent into authoritarianism under Trump 2.0, showrunner Tony Gilroy called the second season “a tribute to [the French resistance]” in a recent interview, and this latest tranche of episodes bares that out; members of the Ghorman rebel group even speak a sort of Space French. The echoes aren’t subtle, but given the many WW2 allusions that George Lucas seeded throughout Star Wars, it’s a fruitful idea to explore.
It also gives us another side of Cassian, who goes undercover as an amusingly suave fashion designer to make contact with the rebels. Though relatively brief, Cassian’s excursion to Ghorman gives us one of the season’s best scenes so far, as a young hotel worker relays his memories of the Tarkin Massacre 15 years prior, in which hundreds were murdered by the young(er) Grand Moff. The Empire’s return to Ghorman has, naturally, not gone down well with locals who suspect a show of force is imminent.
Building towards a tense heist, there’s no question that there is unfinished business on Ghorman, making this latest run of episodes feel less complete than previous arcs. Highlighting the challenges of season two’s ambitious structure, Luthen’s mission to remove a listening device before it can be discovered feels like a (well-told) side story in comparison, while there’s a surprising amount of time dedicated to pushing Saw Gerrera forward to the more-machine-than-man place we find him in Rogue One, with somewhat confusing connections to Star Wars lore than only the most dedicated fans will parse without an explainer.
Given the sky-high standards so far, this is probably the weakest stretch of Andor since the opening episodes of season one. But even Andor at its ‘worst’ is head and shoulders above most shows. (Jordan Farley)
ACE OF BASE If D’Qar looks familiar, it’s because the Resistance establish a base there in The Force Awakens, where Han and Leia reunite.
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