It’s hard not to see the parallels that Marvel’s misfit ensemble picture shares with DC Comics’ The Suicide Squad. This film shares many of the same elements, including staging, pacing, and chemistry, with tragic backstories that progressively make the anti-heroes more sympathetic. But if you’re going to steal from other superhero movies, Thunderbolts steals from the best and manages to pull off a film that is equal parts fun and emotional.

What helps recapture that Avengers vibe is that this film doesn’t need to introduce many new characters. With a full roster of supporting characters previously established, it was refreshing to see them dusted off rather than plunked with a cameo in a Marvel TV show. Granted, more time and development for this project are needed, as Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), still reeling from losing her sister, Black Widow. She finds herself with little purpose as she runs black ops for the American government. Comradery is soon found when she befriends similar mercenaries, such as the elusive Ava “Ghost” Starr (Hannah John-Kamen) and the disgraced John “US Agent” Walker (Wyatt Russell). They all find themselves unwittingly being used as pawns in a greater conspiracy they’ll have to unearth reluctantly.

There’s frankness to how this film addresses the failure of superheroes in a manner both wry and earnest. It’s easy to laugh at the inclusion of the burly and washed-up Red Guardian (David Harbour), but there’s still a level of heart that extends beyond his many boisterous declarations of camaraderie. More nuanced in his dismay of being cast aside is the return of Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), reduced from being a top hero amid the last Avengers event to struggling to assert himself as a politician. With his metal arm now used for sorting documents, the skewering of bureaucracy is potent and a sharp change from the toothless politics of Captain America: Brave New World.

Given that the MCU can only go so far with political conspiracies, Thunderbolts thankfully makes a calculated shift towards the psychological. This favoring is overt in the film’s tragic villain, Bob (Lewis Pullman), an abused young man whose uselessness to the world made him the ideal guinea pig for a shadowy government superhero project. Amid Bob’s myriad of powers is the ability to evoke traumatic memories, including his own history of parental feuds and drug addiction. Despite functioning as a walking trauma-dump enabler, Bob’s dysfunction makes him a more compelling villain and one that can’t be easily defeated with a few good punches.

There’s more faith in playing with already established characters in this cinematic universe rather than expanding the already exhaustive roster. Why trot out more anti-heroes when there’s still plenty on Marvel’s plate that have hardly been touched? It’s a remarkable surprise for a film saga that has seemingly spent the past five years building up new superheroes, such as Shang-Chi and The Eternals, but never quite knowing what to do with them once they’ve broken ground. Thunderbolts draws attention to this fact, considering how these characters have become largely forgotten. This ranges from Yelena’s catharsis for revenge being a subplot in the Hawkeye TV series to Ghost living up to her name as she hasn’t been seen since Ant-Man and the Wasp. It’s an aspect that annoys them and is exploited by the conspiring CIA director, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).

The obscurity of the ensemble doesn’t just become a thematic pillar; it also opens the film up to plenty of engaging chemistry. While Yelena finds herself slipping closer into depression, she still has her wry charm of treating government lab infiltrations with many kicks and punches as just another day at the office. She doesn’t just provide levity to a heavy topic, but a more nuanced portrayal of how someone slips into darkness. It’s not all lonely nights drinking in the bathroom or staring down a cliff contemplating suicide. There are good days and bad days, but also days when she works through her issues. From the start, her arc becomes compelling because she notes that her fractured mental state is either a result of a nihilistic outlook on life or mere boredom. It’s a monologue equally amusing and telling, never feeling like a diced-up passage assorted into bins of earnestness and jokes.

Where the film does feel compartmentalized is in its attempt to juggle these emotional beats with bluntness. I wasn’t kidding when I wrote that this film replicates The Suicide Squad, especially since it doesn’t maneuver that exact vehicle as well. You can practically see the heading over each scene and what it’s meant to represent. The big climax, where the anti-heroes save citizens from crumbling buildings, is staged rather predictably, complete with moments to showcase heroism and receive social applause. Even the surprises in this narrative, such as the fact that not everyone will survive in this scenario, arrive more on cue than as a compelling shift in the story. The limitations of the MCU are revealed within this misfit ensemble, and while they don’t hinder the picture, you can sense the barriers being hit.

Thunderbolts manages to recapture the fun ensemble vibe of the Avengers movies while still being its own distinct thing. It was refreshing to enter a Marvel film that didn’t feel like a series of comic book citations, but rather a chance to spend time with some familiar characters. The film progressively finds its own groove in how it explores the lesser heroes of this universe, creating a whiplash effect as it snaps back by the end credits to remind you it’s still an MCU film. It could use a few more character-building moments, considering how quickly it skips along with its zippy action and conversations. However, for a Marvel film that attempts to tackle trauma as a more overt obstacle, it’s surprisingly fun, given its rather dark subject matter. As tricky as the task was, Thunderbolts pulls off a rousing superhero film about saving the day by confronting the creeping fear of ending your life rather than battling another monster and giving a bog-standard hero speech, something that Yelena would likely scoff at and Red Guardian would comically fail to deliver.