Thunderbolts* ~ Review - 5-2-2025

It’s not a huge secret that the MCU has been in a rut lately. With a few outliers, the movies have all felt very safe and predictable. This does not mean the movies are bad, they’re all perfectly watchable, fun, and well-made blockbusters – but they have been feeling very samey. This rut wasn’t helped by COVID, a major star passing away, drama behind the scenes, and two Hollywood strikes which caused Marvel studios to triage several projects leading to an overly familiar structure and tone.

I liked Captain America: Brave New World, more than most, but it was not cohesive. In many instances, it felt like the film had been completely reconfigured in post with action sequences seemingly dropped in because they were developed years ago, without any story reason to be there.

So, I walked into Thunderbolts* with a fair amount of trepidation. This is the first MCU project post COVID, strike, etc...that has not been "fixed in post." Could the studio recapture their pre-Endgame magic? Imagine my surprise when I found an emotional superhero story about getting out of a rut. It’s like Marvel Studios looked inward and decided to make a meta movie regarding the current struggles of making giant blockbusters when it seems like the bloom has come off the rose.

Speaking of depressive ruts – Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) Black Widow’s sister and former Red Room assassin is very much stuck in one. Following the events of the Hawkeye TV series Yelena has been trapped in a cycle of odd mercenary jobs, drinking herself to sleep, and starting over again. Anyone who has dealt with depression can tell you that the routine can become mind-numbing which grinds you down until all that's left is simply going through the motions. Yelena's estranged father, Alexi AKA The Crimson Guardian (David Harbour) tells her that the last time he was happy was when he was a hero – fighting to save people.

Yelena figures that maybe she should have a more public-facing job, so she contacts her current employer, shady CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus who has been skulking around the MCU for a while now). You see, de Fontaine is about to be impeached because of the top-secret Sentry Program. A human experimentation project that hopes to create a superhero. Unfortunately, Valentina has failed to create a superhero and now needs to cover up all traces of the Sentry Program.

So, Valentina sends Yelena on one last mission – break into a top-secret installation in the Utah wilderness and kill a thief who will be there. However, once Yelena has entered the installation, she is attacked by John Walker AKA U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), and Ava Starr AKA Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) who are both trying to kill her. Along with a mysterious civilian named Bob (Lewis Pullman), it's obvious something is fishy and Valentina has hired all these people to kill each other. Because of this, the group brings in Bucky AKA The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) for help and eventually forms a team that Alexi keeps trying to call The Thunderbolts.

Thunderbolts* is a lot of fun. It captures the feeling of the original Marvel projects, with quirky characters bouncing off each other in crazy situations. However, what surprised me the most is that the story is about how depression turns someone into a shell of their former self. That’s a heavy topic for any movie, not to mention more cerebral than most superhero movies can ever explore.

Writers Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo manage to balance the jokey tone of the MCU with the emotional themes of depression at the core of the film. Keeping the humor more character-based, making Thunderbolts* one of the more tonally consistent entries in the franchise. Director Jake Schreier takes this to another level, making the film feel more like a Richard Linklater-esque hangout picture than a mega-budget action movie. That being said when it comes to action Schreier has a lot of fun. One particular sequence where the Thunderbolts have to fight a superpowered character is a highlight. The Thunderbolts do not really have superpowers – so they are extremely outgunned. This scene put me on the edge of my seat, not that I thought the Thunderbolts were in true danger, per se, but I genuinely did not know how they could defeat this insanely powerful new enemy.

Which leads to a very inventive climax that made me cry. Where the entire ensemble gets to flex their considerable acting chops. Florence Pugh is the heart of the film, bringing a wry sense of humor to Yelena but also a deep well of sadness. David Harbour is a delight as the “dad” of the team and a constant cheerleader. I liked Wyatt Russell’s U.S. Agent as the ball of self-loathing toxic masculinity in Falcon and the Winter Soldier and it’s nice to see him here start to become the hero he thinks he can be.

Sebastian Stan could play Bucky in his sleep at this point, but he never feels like he’s coasting and it is cool to see him step into a leadership role here.

Lewis Pullman is sad, funny, and well, I can’t say more about him without spoiling the film – suffice it to say he’s great.

Hannah John-Kamen is fun as Ghost, but her character gets a bit of short shrift here. It makes me think that the original version of this film was longer and maybe explored her character more. As it stands, she quips with the best of them and has some good fight scenes…but I wanted more.

How do you pull yourself out of a rut? You find your purpose and surround yourself with people who care about you. An MCU movie that hinges on trying to find the good in other people and not simply punching someone hard enough to turn off a laser beam? In 2025 that’s refreshing. Maybe the MCU is back.

*The asterisk is the actual title, and a pretty funny gag running through the entire film that pays off in the credits.

Three out of Four Stars