Major spoilers ahead for Thunderbolts*. You’ve been warned.
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Does the mention of the word “Marvel” make you sigh with exhaustion anymore? I must admit, as much of a fan as I am of the MCU, I’m getting a bit weary of having to keep up with it all. The MCU doesn’t elicit the same excitement that it used to, back when The Infinity Saga was in full swing. But now, Thunderbolts* is stepping up to the plate to give us the last piece in the Multiverse Saga puzzle. Does it bring the fun? Or does it make us let out another tired sigh? Read on to find out.
Thunderbolts* begins with former Black Widow Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) sitting on the roof of a really tall building. We hear her voice talking about the “void” she feels inside, especially after her “sister” Natasha’s death. Yelena talks about how lonely and sad she is, with a lack of purpose. She says she thought throwing herself into work would solve the problem, but it hasn’t.
Yelena then dives off the roof, her parachute opening, landing her on the roof of a different building. It’s a laboratory facility, and we then see Yelena inside with one of the disarmed guards. Turns out that’s who she’s talking to.
A scientist comes in and pulls a gun on her, talking about something called Project Sentry. In the ensuing fight with Yelena, the scientist accidentally shoots himself in the face, ruining any chance of her getting past the facial recognition feature guarding the work. Then we see Yelena walking away from the building (with a guinea pig she rescued), and the lab blowing up while she’s on the phone reporting the job done.
Meanwhile, in D.C., there’s a Congressional hearing underway, targeting the CIA Director, Valentina Allegra DeFontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). While the lead Congressman, Gary (Wendell Pierce), talks about Valentina’s experimental and highly illegal black ops work (known as OXE Group), Valentina makes a big speech about how the Avengers aren’t around to save the world anymore, and the work she’s doing is vital to national security.
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Yelena goes to visit her “dad,” Alexei (David Harbour), aka Red Guardian, whom she hasn’t seen in a year. He pretends that he’s been busy with work and is definitely feeling fulfilled – “so full, so filled.” But in reality, he hasn’t been doing anything except driving a cruddy limo and sitting around watching TV. Yelena tells him how she’s been feeling, and after talking with him, calls Valentina to get another assignment. But Yelena tells her that after this next job, she wants something less covert and more in the public eye.
Valentina tasks Yelena with entering another of the OXE vaults. The job is to destroy the vault and everything in it. But when Yelena gets there, she’s confronted by Ava Starr, aka Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). Yelena’s shocked by her ability to phase in and out of time/space.
So they fight, but then suddenly Antonia Dreykov, aka Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), joins the melee. Yelena’s surprised to see her, but Taskmaster says she’s not there for her. Turns out she’s there for John Walker, aka US Agent (I’m so glad they just call him “Walker” here because US Agent is a really stupid name), who’s also been tasked with the same job.
A crazy fight ensues, during which Ghost ends up fatally shooting Taskmaster. The remaining three realize that Valentina’s sold them all out. Given the hearings, Valentina needs to get rid of all evidence of her OXE Group work, including all of them. Then they discover a random guy lurking, a dorky civilian named Bob (Lewis Pullman). He tells them he can’t remember anything and woke up there in the vault.
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Trapped inside, Ghost tries to get through the door, but then is stopped by a machine that uses noise to keep her from phasing. And when Yelena touches Bob’s hand, she suddenly finds herself inside a memory. She sees herself as a kid (Violet McGraw) in a forest, luring one of her friends, Anya (Alexa Swinton), into a trap where she’s killed, which was part of the Red Room training.
Yelena and Bob end up having a surprisingly meaningful conversation. Bob, having tapped into her psyche, knows how she feels. He tells her he feels the same and asks how she deals with it. Yelena says she just pushes it all down.
Meanwhile, Walker finds the power source of the sonic machine and smashes it, so Ghost can get outside the doors. For a moment, they think Ghost has ghosted them all, but just as the incinerator turns on, the doors open and they get out.
Trouble is, the vault is down at the bottom of a seemingly endless hole. Bob comes up with the idea of linking arms and walking up the walls. When they finally get to an opening, Walker grabs one of Yelena’s batons to pull himself up, which of course, sends the rest of them falling. They think he might be abandoning them, but he saves them all. When Walker touches Bob’s hand, he sees a memory of himself, so wrapped up in a news article about his failed run as Captain America that he ignores his crying son.
Back in D.C., Valentina hosts a gala featuring artifacts from the Battle of New York. Now-Congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) is in attendance, and he meets with Congressman Gary about taking Valentina down. Bucky decides to go after Valentina’s assistant, Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan), trying to get her to help him. He gives her his contact information, but she acts like she’s not interested.
Then Mel sees surveillance footage from the vault and tells Valentina that it looks like Yelena, Ghost and Walker have formed an alliance along with Bob. Mel contacts Bucky and tells him to have her phone tracked. Valentina and Mel ride off in a limo driven by none other than Alexei, who overhears information about Yelena and the others.
Valentina and Mel then head out to the vault, where Valentina’s gathered more mercenaries to take out Yelena, Ghost and Walker – but she wants Bob alive. Yelena, Ghost, Walker and Bob manage to escape in a vehicle, and when the mercs try to stop them, Bob jumps out of the back and makes a commotion to draw attention to himself so they can get away.
Valentina’s mercs open fire on Bob, but it has no effect on him. Then he launches himself way up in the air – yep, he can fly – and he passes out. And when Bob falls back down to the ground, he hits with such force that it causes a huge shockwave. And even some distance away, Yelena, Ghost and Walker’s vehicle gets caught in it and crashes.
As Yelena, Ghost and Walker trek through the desert, who should show up in his cruddy limo but Alexei. Valentina’s mercs give chase, and Alexei’s cruddy limo can barely get up to freeway speed. The mercs start shooting, and Walker protects them by holding his shield up. Then suddenly, the mercs’ vehicles get taken out by none other than Bucky – but then Bucky takes the cruddy limo out as well.
When Bob wakes up, Valentina reminds him of who he is (he always has some amnesia after his “episodes”). She tells him how special he is, having survived the procedure that gave him powers, and how he’s the face of her new Sentry program. When she touches his hand, Valentina sees a memory of herself as a kid (Chiara Stella), hiding from a hitman who comes and kills her father.
Meanwhile, Bucky’s got Yelena, Alexei, Ghost and Walker captive, thinking they’re on Valentina’s side. They try to tell him about Valentina’s plans, but he doesn’t believe them until Mel calls him and basically tells him the same thing – it’s all about Bob.
Unfortunately for Mel, Valentina figures out what she’s doing and tells her it’s like this: there are no good guys. There are only bad guys – and worse guys. And even though she may be a bad guy, Valentina’s determined to save everyone from the worse guys.
So then Bucky, Yelena, Alexei, Ghost and Walker drive into Manhattan to Valentina’s HQ, which turns out to be the old Avengers Tower. They drive right into the lobby, but Valentina tells them she actually wants them to come up. When they get there, they see Bob’s been given a superhero makeover, with a new outfit and blonde hair.
The gang ends up fighting Bob/Sentry, but they’re no match for him. They manage to escape back down to ground level, at which point, they all agree that they’re not heroes. They’re all awful people who don’t have what it takes, and they might as well give up. Alexei chases after Yelena, who has a bit of a breakdown and yells at him for being gone so long. Alexei apologizes and tells her he’s basically in the same place she is.
They comfort each other, but then there’s a commotion. They look up to see Bob/Sentry, who’s now gone totally, literally and figuratively dark. He’s become The Void, a godlike super who can turn everyone and everything into one giant shadow.
The gang comes back together to save civilians caught in the ensuing destruction. But The Void’s covering the whole of Manhattan in darkness. Yelena bravely steps into the darkness and finds herself back in that memory in the woods. Then she escapes that memory and falls into another one – and another, and another, like a bunch of different rooms.
She finally finds Bob sitting alone in a room, stuck in his own memory, where Yelena learns about his abusive father. His mother would blame Bob for intervening, telling him he made things worse. Yelena tells Bob that what she said about pushing everything down doesn’t work. They all must deal with that sadness, or it will eventually consume them.
The rest of the gang enters the Void and finds them, but The Void taunts Bob, getting Bob angry enough to attack. He punches The Void over and over, but that anger is exactly what The Void wants. Yelena runs to Bob and hugs him, telling him he’s not alone. The rest of the gang joins in for one giant group hug (aww), and their support is enough to calm Bob down.
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Bob returns to normal, and The Void disappears, as does the giant, city-sized shadow. All the civilians applaud the gang for saving them. Then they all decide to go after Valentina, who runs away, luring them into a press conference that she’s set up.
She tells the reporters that she foresaw this near-catastrophe and assembled a team of “New Avengers.” And while the crowd cheers the new team, Yelena quietly says to Valentina that they own her now. Oh, and the Thunderbolts name? Turns out that was the name of Yelena’s soccer team when she was a kid. They never won a game. And the gang never quite agrees to adopt the name.
In the mid-credits scene, we see Alexei in a supermarket with a random lady looking at the cereal. He points out the Wheaties box with their photo on it. He tries convincing the lady that he’s on the box, but she walks away, totally weirded out.
And lastly, the post-credits scene: The New Avengers gather in their new lair, where they’re all kinda bummed about not really being accepted as heroes. Alexei’s gotten everyone jerseys with “The Avengerz” on them (and lots of corporate logos), but that doesn’t really help the gang’s morale. Worst of all, Bucky’s talked to Sam Wilson/New Cap, and he doesn’t want to be involved with them. In fact, he’s suing for the rights to the Avengers name. Ouch. That’s cold.
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Bob’s there with them, but he can’t do much given that if he lets The Void out again, it’ll destroy everything. But he has done the dishes. Then they get word of an object entering Earth’s orbit. When they pull up the video feed, they see a strange, Jetsons-looking spacecraft with a giant “4” painted on the side. Fantastic Four: First Steps, here we come.
***
The main thing I loved about Thunderbolts* is that it’s a surprisingly – and refreshingly – emotional flick, which harkens back to what made the MCU so awesome during the Avengers’ original run. It’s all about Yelena here, and that’s not a bad thing at all. Florence Pugh’s performance is spot on, balancing Yelena’s classic dry wit with fatigue and a deep sadness. In a big way, Yelena is us. We all feel that (no pun intended) void left by the ending of the original Avengers team. And like her, we’re searching for something to fill that emptiness.
Thankfully, the bond that’s built between the members of the Thunderbolts is immediate and believable. And that’s all due to the strength of the performances by David Harbour, who is shamelessly goofy, but also sweet; Wyatt Russell, who’s tempered John Walker’s out-of-control anger from Falcon and Winter Soldier (2021) and has improved his ability to play well with others, but still has plenty of angst; and Hannah John-Kamen. Even though she probably has the least amount to do, her Ghost is cool and funny. And Lewis Pullman skillfully plays Bob as delightfully dorky and frighteningly dark at the same time.
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And then, of course, there’s Bucky. As much as I enjoyed this flick, and am all for women being in charge, it’s the biggest flaw. There’s just not enough of him. Even given his dual role as a Congressman and a super, it still feels like he doesn’t get enough screen time. Now I’m one of those who – as much as I love Sam Wilson – think that Bucky’s the one who should’ve gotten the shield after Steve. Even though he’s not as demonstrative with his emotions, Bucky deserves a flick of his own – or at the very least, to lead. As much as I dig Yelena, I really wish Bucky had been the star around whom all the other Thunderbolts revolved.
The only other issue with Thunderbolts* is, as with so many other flicks, the last act. As much time as we get with Bob/Sentry, his transformation into The Void feels rushed, and the subsequent, expected big action sequence is a bit lackluster. And while it’s clear that Julia Louis-Dreyfus has a lot of fun playing Valentina, as a baddie, she really isn’t all that interesting.
That said, Thunderbolts* is a welcome and worthy addition to the MCU, and a lot more fun than Brave New World (sorry to say). I do wonder though, how well the gang is going to fit into Avengers: Doomsday, given this flick’s post-credits scene, where it’s revealed that Sam wants nothing to do with them. I’m certainly going to give it a shot, but I’m afraid that, given the 27 confirmed names in the cast list, the awesome Thunderbolts may end up getting shut out. But I guess we’ll see.
Directed by: Jake Schreier
Written by: Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo
Release date: May 2, 2025
Rating: PG-13
Run time: 2hr, 6min
Distributor: Marvel Studios / Walt Disney Studios
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