Thunderbolts* Review: A Broken, Brilliant Mess—No Capes, Just Scars, and Exactly What the MCU Needed

Thunderbolts* Review

Yes, Marvel is back. And not in a multiversal, cameo-crowded, nostalgia-dripping way. ‘Thunderbolts*’ is the studio’s first honest attempt in years to sit in the discomfort, to let characters feel before they punch. It's dark, it's raw, it's funny in the worst way, and it might just be one of the most human things Marvel has ever done.

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Antiheroes, Anti-nostalgia

Right from the start, ‘Thunderbolts*’ throws its ensemble of misfits—Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), U.S. Agent John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and wildcard newbie Bob/Sentry (Lewis Pullman)—into a trap. Not just a physical one, but a narrative one. They are, quite literally, loose ends. Disposable. Weapons with no masters.

Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) sends them on what seems like a clean-up mission tied to the shady Ox Corp, but the twist hits early and hard: they’re the ones being cleaned up. It’s betrayal, bullets, and an incinerator room escape involving fire hoses and elevator shafts (thank you, Bob) before we even hit the halfway mark.

Florence Pugh Carries It. Again.

Let’s get this out of the way: Florence Pugh is the movie. Her Yelena carries the emotional core of the film without ever needing to say it out loud. She’s cracked open, worn down, funny in that brittle, “if I don’t laugh I’ll die” way. Her scenes with Bob (a breakout, deeply haunting performance by Pullman) are the soul of ‘Thunderbolts*’. Especially when they enter the literal Void—a metaphysical space of trauma and memory that feels more ‘A24’ than MCU.

Pugh makes it all land. Her silence says more than any monologue could. Her grief and guilt are palpable, and when she connects with Bob—whose childhood trauma and mental illness echo far too close to reality—it’s devastating. Marvel finally said the word “meth” onscreen. That’s how far this movie goes.

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Bob Is the New Wanda

Remember when WandaVision let Marvel be weird and personal? ‘Thunderbolts*’ gives that space to Bob, and it works. His power, tied to the Void, a kind of living darkness, isn’t flashy. It’s psychological. Everyone who touches him sees the worst in themselves. And yet, he's oddly gentle. Pullman plays him like a man terrified of his own skin, and that makes him unforgettable.

It’s no surprise that Val wants to control him. Or that she thinks she can. But what ‘Thunderbolts’ understands is that power and pain are intertwined. You can’t separate them. You can only try not to drown.

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A Gritty, Sloppy, Surprisingly Heartfelt Film

Directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo, and Lee Sung Jin, this isn’t your clean-cut Marvel flick. There are pacing issues. A few plot holes. An abrupt Taskmaster death. But none of that matters because the ‘feeling’ is there. The messiness is the point. These are broken people trying to survive a system that built them up and then threw them out.

There’s a brutal beauty in that. Even the action scenes—especially the final battle at the makeshift lab in the ruins of Avengers Tower—have a sense of weight and exhaustion. These characters don’t fight for glory. They fight to stay alive. And sometimes, just to make the voices stop.

The ending? A delicious punch to the gut. Val parades them out as the ‘New Avengers’ in front of the world, using PR to trap them in a role they never asked for. It’s so perfectly 2025. Yelena whispering, ‘We own you now’ to Val before the screen cuts to black—chef's kiss.

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Thunderbolts* The Post-Credit Chaos

I laughed out loud at Red Guardian in the cereal aisle. The ‘New Avengerz’ sweatsuit. Sam Wilson is suing them. It’s ridiculous and brilliant. And just when it feels like we’ve reached some kind of weird equilibrium, the Fantastic Four rocket crashes the party. Oh yes, Marvel’s cooking something. But this time, I’m not dreading it.

‘Thunderbolts’ won’t be for everyone. It’s not clean or tidy or even traditionally ‘good.’ But it’s honest. It’s about mental health, about being used, about finding purpose when you’ve been told you’re nothing but a mistake. It’s also hilarious, violent, and yes, chaotically uneven.

But damn, it felt good to feel again in a Marvel movie.

Marvel stopped trying to win us back with spectacle and instead gave us scars, silence, and fire hoses. And that, in this superhero-fatigued era, feels like a breath of fresh air.

Rating: 8/10. The best MCU film in years, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s real.

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