'Thunderbolts*' Review: MCU's Misfit Antihero Ensemble Flick is a Solid, Mature Outing
Well, we’ve hit the end of the MCU’s fifth phase, though these movies have mostly blended together since Endgame. Guardians Vol. 3 and The Marvels aside, I’ve straight up hated what Kevin Feige’s superhero slop machine’s been churning out lately. Let's recap: Quantumania gave me an existential crisis and Brave New World pissed me off. Thankfully, Marvel’s version of Suicide Squad starring a bunch of C-tier anti-heroes, Thunderbolts*, wound up being the first MCU movie in a long time I've thoroughly enjoyed. Marvel's attempt to return to its roots brings some much-needed freshness and a more mature ambition.
Image copyright (©) Courtesy of Marvel Studios
MPA Rating: PG13 (strong violence, language, thematic elements, and some suggestive and drug references.)
Runtime: 2 Hours and 3 Minutes
Production Companies: Marvel Studios
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Director: Jake Schreier
Writers: Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo
Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Release Date: May 2, 2025
Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) is going through a rough patch in her life. In a post-Natasha Romanoff world, she's as directionless and depressed as any 20-something freelancer (sup). She feels like she's lost purpose as a mercenary for CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis Dreyfus). In the lead-up to her congressional impeachment hearing, featuring Winter Soldier-turned-congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastion Stan), Valentina plans to clean up every piece of evidence that could convict her. Thus, she sends all her mercenaries — Yelena, Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and John Walker (Wyatt Russell) — on a mission, unknowingly designed for them to kill each other. In the midst of fighting, they wake up Bob (Lewis Pullman), a seemingly regular guy who was lying dormant in a container. The assassins realize Valentina has set them up and work together to escape. Along the way, they discover Bob's origins, which Valentina is interested in using and exploiting. Eventually, Yelena, Bucky, her adoptive dad Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), and the rest of these C-tier Marvel misfits must work together as a team and save the day.
Florence Pugh Carries Thunderbolts* Through Stormy Weather
Florence Pugh is a whole movie star, and Thunderbolts* takes complete advantage of her talents as she carries the film confidently on her shoulders. Pugh is forceful, particularly as she illustrates Yelena's depressive outlook as it unravels throughout the story. She also shares terrific chemistry with her costars, hitting the right moments of comedic and sincere emotion, especially when alongside Lewis Pullman's tragic Bob and David Harbour's Alexei. Pullman is also outstanding and potent as this mysterious character who walks the line between empathetic, menacing, and adorable. Bob is the film's emotional core, and Pullman fulfills that assignment with nuance, weight, and realism.
The performances of the rest of the Thunderbolts vary. While Hannah John-Kamen and Wyatt Russell — the older he gets, the more like Kurt he becomes — have great screen presence, aren't given much to work with. John-Kamen in particular is reduced to serving snide remarks when her background could've been further mined.
Though this time she's actually important to the plot, Thunderbolts* is another entry that suffers from too much JLD when her Valentina is still so uninteresting. She's practically Cyril from Invincible, with more sass but none of the deliciously cunning or intimidating qualities.
I hate to say this, but Sebastian Stan is sleepwalking this time around. He's entering his J.Law "What am I doing here? Somebody, please, free me" period, which I get. That man got several Oscar noms now and has been doing this for over a decade. Plus, Bucky is the most crowbarred character in this, as he plays a big brother coach to this team while enacting another ho-hum political subplot involving him and Valentina's thankless assistant Mel (a wasted Geraldine Viswanathan).
Thunderbolts* offers a poignant meditation on mental health without any undercutting jokes. Yay.
One of the most frustrating aspects of these MCU flicks is their disinterest in treating their landscape of heroes as dimensional people. Whatever arcs they have had that attempt to speak to the grief or depression to their characters, especially when depicting their mental health, is thrown to the wayside to service CG fights or, worse, jokes. I'm still pissed about how Endgame insensitively used Thor's depression and PTSD to make fat jokes. That was in the year of our Lord 2019, no less, when we actually had thoughtful depictions and conversations surrounding mental health.
Thunderbolts* is a response to that criticism, as it treats the heroes’ mental struggles and disorders as a legitimate subject matter and not as a joke. Alongside Eric Pearson, the film was co-written by Joanna Calo, who was a co-showrunner on The Bear but also a writer on BoJack Horseman, which I consider to be the most vivid representation of mental health issues in media. Its deft comparison of Yelena and Bob’s struggles with depression is particularly effective and, most refreshingly, the film refrains from smashing the "CG slop fight fest climax" button and offers something surrealistic and meaningful, providing one of the most ambitious and emotionally resonant climaxes in any Marvel flick to date. Granted, DC (with its Harley Quinn TV series) and Skybound (with Invincible) run laps around them, but by MCU standards, it's a good start.
Boy, it's going to be frustrating to see these characters in the hands of Michael Waldron and Stephen McFeely in Doomsday, where they'll most likely be an interchangeable bunch of quips.
Thunderbolts* features the best MCU direction in years
Beef director Jake Schreier frankly provides the best filmmaking in eons. Schreier avoids the blasted green screen, and shoots on location — featuring walk-on extras with amazing reaction shots — with an emphasis on practical effects and stunts. You know, using a Marvel budget to make a real movie. This also means that I am actually feeling some soul behind the screen for once. His direction is tight, clean, and cinematic, and the fight choreography and tight editing add actual cinematic weight to this entry — a much-needed band-aid after Brave New World's messiness. Each action set piece has an inventive new variable, either in how the characters fight in a certain situation or Schreier's impressive filmmaking, that keeps it fun. Despite it all, it is patchy in ways it shouldn't have been. There are parts of the second act that could've used more action while keeping its subversive narrative elements.
The Thunderbolts are a C-list team notches from B-tier greatness
Thunderbolts* is one of the better Marvel movies in a very long time. However, its structure and pacing are far too calculated, falling short of the strength and ambition that defined the first phase it strives to emulate. It still suffers from the corporate imperative to rush towards Avengers: Doomsday, which also means rushing the characterization, leaving some arcs underexplored or dropped entirely. Pearson and Calo's script juggles being self-contained, reintroducing these characters, giving only a few of them any real depth, propping up the MCU's future, and neatly wrapping up its story within a two-hour runtime to maximize box office profits. Ava Starr and John Walker are severely undeveloped, especially as the film approaches its ambitious third act, where it follows through some of the others' arcs rather than focusing solely on Yelena. Much like our team of traumatized assassins, this movie had the potential to rise above its franchise’s horrible past. But even though they were supposed to be a team, it feels like a rom-com where it’s clear the leads would be better off as friends. But hey, at least I give a shit about these characters now, which is more than I can say for most of the heroes from phase five.
Final Statement
Thunderbolts* is one of the better Marvel movies in recent memory, thanks to actual on-location direction, inventive set pieces, an impeccable Florence Pugh performance, and thoughtful reflection on mental health.
