Thunderbolts*: MCU's first sign of life in years is obsessed with death

Jackson Weaver · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 29, 2025 12:00 PM EDT | Last Updated: 9 minutes ago

The Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't precisely been successful a cleanable headspace lately. 

First, the possibly unfairly panned The Marvels failed to make hype implicit a caller harvest of superheroes buttressing the MCU's crumbling facade.

Then, a procession of weakly received, minimally watched bid failed to ferry fans implicit the spread betwixt the aged Avengers' departures and the much-awaited accomplishment of the Fantastic Four and yet (finally) mutants.

Then, the astir supernaturally bland Captain America: Brave New World failed to bash thing different than analyse however overmuch boredom a quality caput is really susceptible of experiencing.

The little said astir that, the better. 

So to accidental Marvel has been connected thing of a downward spiral is astir apt a spot of an understatement. And it would marque consciousness for immoderate of the penning to bespeak that — a small bitterness, oregon adjacent ennui, seeping into storylines different made cheery by each that neon spandex, millennial quippiness and redeeming the satellite from the forces of evil. 

What was not expected was Thunderbolts*: a Suicide Squad-adjacent communicative of ragtag misfits but truthful infused with themes of depression, nihilism and decease it could astir enactment arsenic a spiritual sequel to Donnie Darko. 

But what was possibly adjacent much unexpected is that those ingredients turned into a look that is — for each intents and purposes — a beauteous large movie. 

WATCH | Thunderbolts* trailer:

MCU backstory baggage

But conscionable to drawback you up for Thunderbolts*, here's wherever we stand. 

Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), nonrecreational assassin and pseudo-sister to Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, is moving arsenic a criminal-for-hire. She's successful and retired of secretive authorities labs with each the glum professionalism of A Christmas Story's promenade Santa — dutifully predicting wherever to instrumentality her genu oregon footwear good earlier her marks adjacent cognize what deed them. 

It's each meaningless, though. As she tells a bound and gagged antheral she's presently robbing, she's drifting done her ain beingness similar a river. Or similar an aged leaf. Or similar an aged leafage successful a river. Or immoderate — she's hardly adjacent listening to herself astatine this point. Because, you know, what adjacent is the point?

What she needs is simply a change: 1 her sort-of father, sort-of retired, sort-of Soviet superhero Red Guardian (David Harbour) tells her tin lone beryllium recovered successful a cheering, adoring crowd. In hunt of the hero's beingness that mightiness conscionable springiness her meaning, she tells her handler and existent CIA manager Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) she wants thing much fulfilling, much heroic, much public-facing. 

This comes astatine a hard clip for de Fontaine, though; she's presently embroiled successful an impeachment proceedings getting ever person to discovering her transgression dealings. The solution? Send Yelena for 1 past job. 

Tell her she conscionable needs to assassinate Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen) — the teleporting anti-hero from Ant-Man and the Wasp — whom de Fontaine claims is headed to her bunker to bargain grounds of her amerciable work. But erstwhile she gets there, Yelena besides encounters John Walker (Wyatt Russell), the disgraced, impermanent Captain America replacement present connected de Fontaine's payroll — and seemingly hired to assassinate her successful turn. 

What follows is your emblematic Mexican standoff misunderstanding, arsenic each 3 rapidly fig retired they're escaped ends de Fontaine simply means to necktie up — either by them finishing 1 different disconnected oregon via the furnace jets waiting overhead successful the now-locked room. What de Fontaine didn't expect, however, was the nonrecreational transgression delinquents someway managing to get implicit their egos to squad up. 

Even little expected, though, was the antheral who crawled retired of a container successful the confusion. He says his sanction is Bob. Bob Reynolds. And helium has nary much of an thought implicit however helium got determination than we do. 

For those hoping for a axenic surprise, it would beryllium champion to halt here. But for adjacent casual comics fans, it shouldn't travel arsenic overmuch of a daze implicit who this antheral ends up being. 

Robert (Bob) Reynolds, amended known arsenic Sentry, is close up determination with Molecule Man, Adam Warlock and Franklin Richards arsenic among the astir almighty human-ish characters connected offer. Operating arsenic a benignant of Marvel Superman analogue, there's small helium can't do, fewer helium can't beat. Played present by Lewis Pullman, the Sentry's main comics flaw is arsenic his downfall here: a antheral talented powers done a ace serum that did thing to lick the heavy and overwhelming intelligence wellness problems astatine his core. 

Out of that convoluted introduction, comes a much straightforward theme. From Yelena's flailings toward meaning and distant from her trauma-soaked childhood, to Walker's self-destructive region from his family, to the Red Guardian's painfully beardown but faded memories of being important once, each the mode to Bob's volatile reckoning with the convulsive void wrong himself, Thunderbolts* is astir shockingly nonstop successful its message. 

This is simply a movie astir pain, astir pointlessness — Pugh is Thunderbolts*' existent bosom here, and from the morose, self-defeating monologue she delivers astatine the apical each the mode to the achy memories dredged up toward the end, she hammers that constituent home. 

That is successful the look of immoderate crippled flabbiness. Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes appears to beryllium much oregon little the celebrated look tacked connected for MCU continuity's sake, and the governmental intrigue subplot helium spars successful alongside a chap congressman (Wendell Pierce) and de Fontaine's adjunct (Geraldine Viswanathan) hardly holds together. Meanwhile, Sentry's instauration ends up being lone somewhat little ridiculous and hard to judge than successful the comics — a lingering contented arsenic ace serums marque ace powers much common, and the abilities they assistance needfully go much and much almighty to compensate. 

But it astir doesn't substance arsenic Bob's storyline pulls successful what is 1 of the astir amazingly incisive and boldly discomfiting elements since Killmonger's depressingly convincing villain monologue successful Black Panther. In the comics, Sentry's main weakness is his ain depression, self-hatred and shame — a nagging consciousness of inadequacy and panic truthful almighty it gains its ain reflector individuality arsenic "the Void."

Ignoring this film's apt grounds of being the archetypal Marvel movie to admit the beingness of meth, the mode it grapples with those themes consciousness uniquely direct. Questions of meaninglessness, loneliness, worthlessness and the occasionally appealing allure of decease each find their mode into a franchise shared with Cosmo the Spacedog and elephantine screaming abstraction goats. And contempt a somewhat after-school-special handling successful the end, the immense bulk of the movie feels similar it understands however paralyzing those emotions tin be. 

Multiple times characters archer others they recognize the telephone of the void — the unnervingly communal impulse to flirt with definite death. The opening moments of the movie adjacent diagnostic Yelena stepping balletically from the borderline of a building; lone seconds aboriginal bash we spot she has a parachute. 

This is not to accidental Thunderbolts* is overwhelmingly dour — determination are each the effective, jokey one-liners you'd expect from an MCU epic. But there's thing darker determination too, handled with much seriousness, respect and directness than feels possible. It's a refreshing motion of beingness from a franchise that agelong agone seemed to person fixed up the ghost.