Thunderbolts* (2025) Review
"A lot of modern blockbusters start strong and tail off for a standard-issue finale... Thunderbolts* is the exact opposite." -Sam Sewell-Peterson
Thunderbolts* (2025)
Director: Jake Schreier
Screenwriters: Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo
Starring: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Lewis Pullman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Olga Kurylenko, Geraldine Viswanathan, Chris Bauer, Wendell Pierce
by Sam Sewell-Peterson
When is a superhero movie not a superhero movie? When the characters saving the day aren’t, on paper at least, super, or heroes. The very idea of Thunderbolts* (yes, the asterisk against the title is explained eventually) uniting a ragtag roster of Marvel outsiders and D-tier heroes, villains and antiheroes wasn’t exactly met with rapturous reception when it was announced at Comic Con a few years ago, but from zero expectations it ends up being one of the strongest, and certainly the most interesting, entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for half a decade.
A group of highly trained or enhanced assets comprised of former Black Widow assassin Yelena Balova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) and apparent normie Bob (Lewis Pullman) reluctantly join forces to fight back against the machinations of CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Can they put their differences aside and confront the demons of their past to become true heroes?
A lot of modern blockbusters start strong and tail off for a standard-issue finale, usually involving a sky portal or something big falling on a city. If anything, Thunderbolts* is the exact opposite, with Marvel’s antihero team-up having a slightly unsteady beginning as it brings everyone up to speed on who everyone is and what their deal is (particularly for the benefit of those who missed Black Widow and/or some of the Disney+ TV shows) but has a much more confident and affecting second half thanks to the hard-hitting themes it wears on its sleeve.
It’s so gratifying to watch one of these that’s actually about something again. The last comic book movie boasting such emotional depth was probably Logan. Guardians Vol. 3 aside, recent Marvel projects have seemed more concerned with vaguely setting up the next big superhero event than doing the characters we’re currently spending time with real justice. This has all the expected punching and shooting and collateral damage, but look a bit closer and you’ll realise this is a deconstruction of superhero iconography, and more explicitly discussing the all-consuming impact of depression.
It’s dishearteningly rare to watch a superhero movie that actually features heroes saving civilians these days. When you get past a certain budget level, the average person on the street tends to be forgotten about. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies which regularly checked in with ordinary New Yorkers and put as much emphasis on Peter Parker paying his rent as it did his web-slinging is, it’s safe to say, far in the rearview mirror. They may not be the team first to be called upon, but when the chips are down the Thunderbolts will put their lives on the line for those who can’t protect themselves. Because the majority of our super-team here lack particularly flashy powers (Yelena’s dry observation, “So, we all just punch and shoot?”) we also see much of the action (including a pretty wild stretch limo flip) executed in a more old-fashioned, tactile way, on real locations or sets and using complicated rigs and wires.
The judiciously-deployed action kicks off with Pugh’s Yelena doing her best Batman in The Dark Knight impression by diving off a skyscraper and parachuting onto another building to fight armed thugs in a strikingly lit hallway. We then have a visceral four-way scrap between Yelena, Walker, Ghost and Taskmaster that also serves as the characters’ introduction to each other, with each specifically targeting a different combatant for assassination, and two more VFX-heavy superhero action sequences in the final act that nonetheless have weight, jeopardy thanks to our Thunderbolts not being invincible, and an all-important in-camera starting point.
Ensemble casts demand that all the key players are afforded their share of memorable moments and effective character interplay. Most of the talent involved gets their time to shine, while a couple demand more screentime than a tight two hours allows for. Pugh is unquestionably the highlight, Yelena serving as the team’s pained, beating heart and de-facto leader, often clashing with Russell’s hyper-competent but smug and surly Walker, while John-Kamen’s Ghost struggles with teamwork after a life of self-sufficient survival. Bucky and Alexei serve as the adults in the room, for better and worse, with the former providing experience and the latter the embarrassing dad jokes and a poignant connection with Yelena.
So, what about Bob? Now that’s a question probably best left for a separate, spoiler-y analysis. Suffice to say that in the role, Lewis Pullman continues to prove his versatility as a star and almost runs off with the whole movie once we really get into his character’s backstory, which makes explicit the film’s whole thesis about mental health, trauma, and who should wield power to keep the world safe. This might well divide audiences over whether discussing such a sensitive issue through the prism of genre cinema cheapens it or not. I’d argue it makes it more accessible and potentially allows the subject to hit harder and with a wider spectrum of people.
This does feel of a piece with other comic book team-ups like Guardians of the Galaxy or The Suicide Squad but Jake Schreier and his writers have bigger ambitions in their mind than the average summer blockbuster fare. Val’s assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan making the most of her every scene) mentions at one point that she was a kid when the Avengers saved New York. It’s been a long time since then, both in universe and in the real world, both of which have transformed noticeably. What do superheroes and superhero movies mean to the public today? If they tap into relatable issues and carry on being as inventive and refreshing as Thunderbolts* then they may be considered relevant for a good long while yet.
Score: 7.5/10
Watch and Listen to Second Cut on YouTube
Follow Us @secondcutpod
Follow the Author @sspthinksfilm
Our Old Work at The Film Magazine