Movie Review - Thunderbolts*

Thunderbolts* (2025)

I am insanely behind on superhero movie reviews. Which... yeah, I just kept pushing things further and further.

But let's talk about Thunderbolts*! Or as part of its rather delightful media play, "Thunderbolts* New Avengers". Ostensibly an adaptation of Marvel's answer to DC's Suicide Squad of a group of super-villains/anti-heroes who find themselves forced by circumstance and the goodness of their hearts to take a more heroic role, Thunderbolts* ends up actually being a bit of a lower-key Avengers team-up. And taken in that regard, I feel like it does a pretty good job at gathering a bunch of the MCU's more forgotten secondary characters and giving them a huge boost, while also making it an introduction to several new ones.

And I think I'll go through the parts of the movie that I don't like so much... it really isn't a problem unique to Thunderbolts* but it's something that's common to a lot of the ensemble movies. Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Justice League... there's usually a couple of characters that are left just hanging. Whether it's Hawkeye or Groot, it's understandable that the movie focuses on a couple of characters as the 'star'. For Thunderbolts*, however, owing to the fact that almost everyone in this movie are already secondary characters, I felt like the problem is a lot more noticeable. Yelena and Sentry take center stage, while the rest are... they don't really feel particularly necessary for the movie, if we're being honest. The movie does the best with the screentime that it's got with these characters, and we did get some great scenes for Red Guardian and USAgent, but at the end of the day it does really feel like it's a Yelena Belova movie first and foremost, and the rest of the Thunderbolts are just her quirky side-cast. The fact that we didn't even get hints of their 'fear' dimensions even though a couple of them clearly seem to be built up to it felt quite of a missed opportunity in my opinion. 

There is also the very wasted character of Taskmaster, who was killed with maybe five minutes' worth of screentime. I really did feel like Taskmaster's death was really kind of... unnecessary? It felt like 'we needed a death for the supervillains-turned-heroes movie' moment, except instead of a nobody, they actually killed a character with some backstory and history that was abruptly truncated. It's not like I'm a particularly big fan of Taskmaster, but the fact that Yelena -- who was from the same Widow program as her -- barely had any reaction and handwaved it away... it felt very off. 

But other than that? Thunderbolts might be my favourite Marvel movie since... perhaps since Spider-Man: No Way Home. I don't think it's a mistake to say that Marvel's been on a bit of a decline since Endgame, something that's a bit more noticeable in the past couple of years. And while Deadpool & Wolverine was a fun success, it was also a movie that relied on a lot of meta jokes to really understand. This was a great return to a more 'grounded' superhero team... which makes the contrast of them fighting against the immensely powerful metahuman Sentry even more stark. 

The movie starts off focusing with Yelena acting as a hit-woman for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, leader of the CIA and essentially an evil Nick Fury as far as the MCU is concerned. We get to see a very cool physical stunt as she jumps off the towers in Malaysia, and Yelena is just... going through a superhero-assassin's equivalent of a mid-life crisis. She gets into a discussion with her dad Alexei "Red Guardian" Shostakov about it, but Alexei isn't exactly the best person to go to for a deep talk like this. Always enjoyed the MCU's random but well-delivered reinvention of Red Guardian as a crazy-yolo embarrassing superhero dad. He runs a limousine service now, and there's quite a bit of pathos worked into his scenes where he goes through the motions of acting like this limousine job is a totally natural thing to do for a retired superhero... but the death of Natasha Romanoff clearly still weighs heavily on the two of them. 

Yelena decides to do the spy-movie thing of doing 'one last job'. And that one last job turns out to be Valentina sending four different assassins to the Vault with directions to kill each other. We've got Yelena Belova (former Black Widow from, well, Black Widow), Taskmaster (former villain in Black Widow), Ghost (former villain in Ant-Man and the Wasp) and USAgent John Walker (former villain in Falcon and the Winter Soldier). During the skirmish, Taskmaster is killed and the three remaining assassins argue against each other about why they're sent here and their relation to Valentina.

I'll just go through the other two very quickly here... Ghost/Ava Starr feels like a huge wasted potential. She gets some lines here and there about her past and her desire to find a cure for her condition, but she's probably the character I notice the least in the movie. She just feels like she's there for the spectacle of having someone with slightly-more-powerful-than-the-average-human superpowers. 

USAgent/John Walker gets some nice moments early on as he keeps trying to deny that everything is well and good for him. He's got a prickly exterior and the most assholish of the group, but as we learn through the movie, he never quite survived the whole 'evil Captain America' thing, and his inability to control his temper has destroyed his personal life too, making him estranged with his wife. My problem really is that USAgent's story was built up... and he kind of just slowly fades into the background of the movie as 'the jerk' without much of a real resolution. Again, future movie, sure. But Walker is who I'm thinking of when I thought that the climax of the movie could've featured one or two extra flashbacks from the other Thunderbolts. 

Anyway, Yelena, USAgent and Ghost find a strange amnesiac man called Bob, who is just.... he's just Bob! Lewis Pullman acts as Bob/Sentry, and the direction the MCU goes with the amnesiac, confused Bob is perfectly fun. Bob's adorably out of his depth, and it's clear that there's more than meets the eye about him -- when Yelena and Walker touch Bob, they are transported to some creepy mind-scapes based on their past traumas. But our heroes don't have much time to deal with it, as we jump into another action scene as they try to escape. It's at this point where the Yelena and Walker kinda-sorta learn to... not trust each other yet, but at least to realize that they have a common enemy. Walker is more gung-ho in his approach to battle, Yelena prioritizes saving the civilian Bob, and Ghost... initially just runs away before coming back. 

In-between these action scenes, however, Bob reveals that he has superpowers -- impressive ones at that. Flight, super-strength, invulnerability... typical Superman powers. He gets separated from Yelena's group, and falls down to the ground and causes a shockwave before being detained by Valentina's minions. At this point it's somewhat clear that Bob or 'Project Sentry' actually worked, and that was one of the genetically-modified superhuman assets that Valentina had created. 

While all of this is going on, Valentina has a bit of her sub-plot where she's under investigation for improper usage and disposal of assets. Councilman Bucky Barnes, the former Winter Soldier, is running against her and trying his best to get her unseated legally. There is a bit of a side-plot with some characters like Valentina's put-upon but ultimately well-meaning secretary Melissa Gold (Songbird in the comics), but ultimately it's just some nice setup for what Valentina is trying to do -- eliminate evidence in face of a trial that could destroy her... and eventually pivoting to showing off the new face of the Avengers. 

Back to the crew at the desert, Red Guardian rejoins the movie as he shows up in the middle of the desert with his limousine, picking up Yelena, USAgent and Ghost. Alexei is over the moon excited about being embroiled in some dark-secret-spy superhero mission, and we even get a fun brick joke of Alexei discovering this from his role as a chauffeur, where he was moving around some of the politicians involved in the Valentina subplot. Alexei decides to dub the group the 'Thunderbolts' after Yelena's childhood soccer team. 

We get a bit of a comedy-action moment as a group of military humvees attack the limousine, while Yelena and the others are frustrated that all of Alexei's so-called improvements to his limousine are all junk. Bucky shows up at this point, dressed up in full superhero regalia and shooting sci-fi magnet-disc launchers and taking down the humvees. Our heroes are excited... until Bucky attacks them. 

Bucky notes the relatively poor track record that Yelena, Ava and Walker have been doing -- since they still look like criminals. The whole 'man, look at these losers' side of the movie is probably quite clear at this point... but Yelena and Walker manage to talk Bucky down, explaining the whole Bob situation. The now-complete team of Thunderbolts then take the fight to Avengers tower.

In Avengers tower, however, Bob has been... well, essentially gaslit and manipulated by Valentina. She shows up and acts as the kindly mentor; she gave Sentry blonde hair, a very fancy suit, and honeyed words. It's a lot of well-done manipulation that builds up on Bob's own insecurities and frustrations because everyone else has been treating him as a joke or a deadweight throughout the entire movie. And thusly controlled emotionally, Sentry faces off against the Thunderbolts and just shows off the sheer gap in power between someone with the powers of Superman... and a bunch of people with super-soldier serums. Absolutely nothing the Thunderbolts did works, and they are beaten into a hasty retreat. 

All the talk about Sentry having the 'powers of a god' and all that jazz begin to get to him, however, and Valentina is forced to use a killswitch on him. This, however, awakens Sentry's dark side -- the 'Void'. Perfectly creepy by having two tiny pinpricks for eyes, the Void rises up and begins attacking everyone indiscriminately, delivering a very creepy effect of turning people nearby into shadowy afterimages on the ground. It's a harrowing effect. 

As the Thunderbolts disperse, we get one of my favourite emotional moments in the movie, where Yelena and Alexei get into a bit of an argument. Alexei is far from being the perfect father, but by god he loves his adoptive daughter and the scene between the two is quite well acted. This tender moment of purpose and Alexei's belief in his daughter ends up being interrupted as Void's attack causes helicopters to crash and buildings to collapse. And despite everything, despite the world telling them that they are losers and should give up, the Thunderbolts rush in and start saving people. 

Which is a nice, uplifting moment...  right until a little girl gets turned into shadow right after our heroes rescued her. 

This kickstarts the movie's climax, where after a tense moment of running around, Yelena realizes that the way to stop the Void is to reach Bob from the inside, and just... lets herself be consumed by the shadow dimension. It's a bit of a trippy sequence where Yelena sees Bob trapped within the Void dimension as a poor, scared child in an attic while his parents fought and yelled about what a loser he is. Yelena then gets warped away to one of her more traumatic missions as a child, where she caused another young girl to get killed. This plays on a bit of a loop until the Thunderbolts break in and together they arrive in a facsimile of the Malaysian laboratory where Bob was experimented upon. 

The final battle itself is... it's all right. Void immobilizes the Thunderbolts still, but they manage to talk Bob into resisting and fighting his own dark side... and as all the emotions build up, they realize that they need to make Bob stop attacking. Yelena reaches Bob while struggling against the warping landscape, and manages to talk her down. This causes the Void to disappear and for everything to return to normal as the Void-ed people are released. 

And again, what I just described is something that hinges entirely on execution. It could either be an eye-rollingly stupid, cheesy way to end the movie with the power of friendship... or a genuinely touching moment. And I feel this is where the focus on Yelena pays some dividends, becuase that's really what allows the movie to sell the friendship and bond between Yelena and Bob well. Again, I would also reiterate that this arguably comes at the cost of losing character moments for everyone, but it does make for a neat ending. The fact that mental health and the acknowledgement of it is something that talks the superpowered evil side off is something that not all people would like to see in a superhero movie, but I absolutely love it. 

And the movie ends (post-credits scene notwithstanding) with a bit of a funny twist. As the Thunderbolts converge on Valentina, she lures them into a press conference where she introduces them as the New Avengers... and the credits rip off the 'Thunderbolts' title with 'New Avengers'. 

Ultimately? Watching this movie the first time, I really did feel like it was a bit patchy, especially for a movie that's supposed to introduce the New Avengers. Bucky really didn't have much to do and he doesn't exactly fall into the 'loser hero' category as the rest of the cast. Ghost is, well, a bit of a ghost. But ultimately I still feel like this is a great return to form for the MCU. The plot is well-done and the plot twists are well delivered. After several movies that relied a bit too much on CGI, the more traditional stunts and low-key use of CGI make the movie a delight to watch. And at the very least, the movie does have a very strong focus on Yelena and Bob. It's not what I expected from a Thunderbolts movie, for sure, but it's a surprisingly fun watch. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Post-Credits Scene:

• A scene apparently taken from the upcoming Avengers Doomsday, where the New Avengers argue about Captain America/Sam Wilson making his own group of Avengers. Alexei suggests they market themselves as the AvengerZ; Bob apparently can't transform into Sentry for a while; but signs of a spaceship entering orbit show up on their radar and they see the Fantastic Four's shuttle. 
  
• Past Movies Continuity:
• The events of Captain America: Brave New World is mentioned, with President Ross's transformation into the Red Hulk and Bucky acting as a congressman both happening in that movie. 
• Yelena was approached by Valentina in the post-credits of Black Widow, and was working for her in Hawkeye. John Walker was recruited and given his new darker uniform in the final scenes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Red Guardian and Taskmaster were last seen in Black Widow; Ghost was last seen in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
• The events of Yelena, Walker and Ghost's failures and roles as antagonists are brought up and recapped to varying degrees by other characters.
• The alien invasion of New York in The Avengers is mentioned by several characters, with Mel being a high schooler during that attack.
• Loki's scepter from The Avengers, last seen being experimented to create Ultron in Age of Ultron, appears on a museum commemorating the Chitauri invasion. 
• Avengers Tower was sold in Spider-Man: Homecoming, with it having moved hands to Valentina by the time of this movie. The fight against Sentry takes place in the penthouse bar where Loki confronted Tony Stark in The Avengers.
• Walker uses Steve's "on your left" catchphrase... which is a bit weird since that's a personal joke between Steve and Sam. 
• Bucky's disc-launcher weapon was used by him during his villainous stint in Captain America: The Winter Soldier during the assassination attempt against Nick Fury. 
• Movie Superhero Codenames: Red Guardian, Sentry and Winter Soldier's codenames are constantly spoken by everyone, with Alexei being particularly happy about dropping code-names. Bob and Yelena also name-drop "Void" several times. Yelena is mostly referred to by name, though some characters describe her as 'a' Black Widow. Ava is never properly referred to as "Ghost" (though the word 'ghost' as an adjective is used), Walker is never referred to as "U.S.Agent" (though comparing him with Captain America is used a couple of times), and Antonia is also never referred to as Taskmaster.
• Favourite Action Scene: Everyone trying to dogpile Sentry and subsequently getting tossed around.
• Funniest Line: "BOB!"
• This isn't the first Marvel project to have a sudden 'title change' at the end, with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier changing titles in its last episode to Captain America and the Winter Soldier. 
• Sentry, a.k.a. Bob Reynolds, a.k.a. the Void, was initially released in a solo series where Sentry is a superhero 'with the power of a million exploding suns'. The civilian Bob wakes up one day with a lot of memories as a 'forgotten' superhero who worked alongside classic superheroes like the Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men, but found out that all evidence of his existence seems to have disappeared. Trying to figure out who his arch-nemesis 'the Void' is, Bob discovers that the Void is his evil alter-ego.
• Sentry's "Golden Guardian of Good" and "the power of a thousand exploding suns" that were originally throwbacks to his status as a (fake) Silver Age superhero is used as Valentina's market research.
• Melissa Gold is the civilian alter-ego of the supervillain Screaming Mimi, better known by her post-comics-Thunderbolts superhero alter-ego Songbird.
• The Thunderbolts borrows its name from a superhero team led by 'Citizen V'. The Thunderbolts appeared out of nowhere as relatively unknown superheroes who begin to show up the Avengers. Turns out that the team is a group of supervillains in disguise led by Baron Zemo. Subsequent incarnations of the Thunderbolts would have varying rosters with varying members of supervillains/anti-heroes and varying levels of reformation. 
• The term 'New Avengers' have been used for several different alternate versions of the Avengers, and a version that included the Sentry was one of the first uses of the name, formed by Captain America after the disbandment of the original Avengers. 
• Specifically, the presence of Sentry and a villain who's trying to make use of him is based on the Dark Avengers, a group led by Iron Patriot (Norman Osborn) who had a somewhat similar premise with the original Thunderbolts as a superhero team made of reformed supervillains. 
• Valentina renamed the Avengers Tower 'the Watchtower'. That was the name of the base of Sentry's home base in the comics.