{"id":11809,"date":"2025-05-02T20:57:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T00:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11809"},"modified":"2025-06-21T22:49:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T02:49:04","slug":"thunderbolts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/05\/02\/thunderbolts\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunderbolts*"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Thunderbolts*<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Marvel\/Action-Adventure-Sci-Fi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 126 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (strong violence, language, thematic elements, some suggestive and drug references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jake Schreier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Son Lux\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Andrew Droz Palermo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 2, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Has anybody else noticed the dark pallor that hangs over the recent Marvel movies (e.g. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World)? It looks like somebody forgot to turn the lights on. The trend continues in their latest film Thunderbolts*<\/strong>, an ensemble piece about a ragtag team of super-powered beings best described as The Anti-Avengers. I hesitate to refer to them as heroes because they\u2019re not exactly heroic. They\u2019re definitely not keen on working with each other, but they\u2019re going to have to in order to defeat the latest threat to humanity.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This new team, unnamed despite Red Guardian (Harbour, Stranger Things) pushing for Thunderbolts (the name of the always-defeated kids soccer team he coached at one time), consists of characters we met (and might not remember) from previous MCU outings. Former Black Widow assassin Yelena Belova (Pugh, Little Women), the sort-of leader of the group, is the younger sister of Natasha Romanoff, the Scarlett Johansson character killed off in Avengers: Endgame. Enhanced super soldier John Walker (Russell, Night Swim) was Captain America for about five minutes before being ousted for disgracing the shield (in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier). He\u2019s still not over it. Ghost (Kamen, Black Mirror), who we met in Quantumania, can phase through solid matter like walls and doors. She can also turn invisible. Taskmaster (Kurylenko, Quantum of Solace), another former Black Widow and no longer under her father\u2019s control, has photographic reflexes meaning she\u2019s able to mimic any opponent\u2019s fighting style. Russian blowhard Red Guardian, estranged father figure to Yelena, is kind of the comic relief. Then there\u2019s Bob (Pullman, Top Gun: Maverick), a mysterious guy who basically just shows up from out of nowhere.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot has CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Dreyfus, Veep) scurrying to eliminate any and all evidence of her many misdeeds ahead of impeachment proceedings. This includes the aforementioned super-people. She sends them to a secret facility where they\u2019re ordered to kill each other. One of them is killed, but I won\u2019t say who. Upon realizing they\u2019ve been set up, they manage to escape the deathtrap and Valentina\u2019s forces. The latter is accomplished with the help of Bucky Barnes\/Winter Soldier (Stan, The Apprentice), now a Congressman. He, of course, joins up with them to face a mighty foe.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So who\u2019s the villain this time? That\u2019s a good question. The clear antagonist is Valentina, a power-hungry politico who does bad things for the greater good or so she thinks. Her bad deeds include experimenting on humans, one of them being Bob, a troubled young man looking for his place in the world. He has powers and with Valentina\u2019s \u201chelp\u201d, he becomes a weapon of mass destruction called \u201cSentry\u201d. This is who the Thunderbolts are up against in the third act, another damage-heavy battle in the streets of New York.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At this point, it\u2019s exhausting keeping up with the MCU (36 films and 13 TV\/streaming series) and I really don\u2019t care anymore. I\u2019m sure a lot of you feel the same. I had to do a little reading up on the characters before I saw Thunderbolts*<\/strong>. Not that it made a lot of difference. I still felt as though I was watching a Marvel movie about strangers, second-rate \u201cheroes\u201d (again, I hesitate to use the term) who could never replace Iron Man\/Tony Stark, Captain America\/Steve Rogers and Thor. It\u2019s probably best not to think of them as Avengers even though this MCU entry sets them up to be just that, the B team.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That being said, I was entertained by Thunderbolts*<\/strong>. It\u2019s not a great film by any means, but it\u2019s a definite improvement over Brave New World and Wakanda Forever. I feel like director Jake Schreier (Robot & Frank) could have leaned more into the subversiveness. He had the chance to upend the genre and while he colors outside the lines a few times, the movie ultimately settles into familiar territory with the Thunderbolts (a name nobody but Guardian likes) fighting a more powerful opponent with world-ending abilities.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I love Florence Pugh. I\u2019ve loved her since the indie period drama Lady Macbeth (2016) and the miniseries The Little Drummer Girl (2018). She\u2019s an amazingly gifted actress. She adds depth to Yelena, a tough girl still grieving for her sister. Her loss has left her emotionally numb which is really just a front. She\u2019s hurting inside. She\u2019s ready to leave Valentina\u2019s employ after an assignment in Malaysia in which she blows up a building to destroy evidence. Her depression eventually surfaces in a scene where she finally opens up. She\u2019s the most interesting character in Thunderbolts*<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting in Thunderbolts*<\/strong> is, surprisingly, better than adequate. Harbour, in particular, seems to be having a good time playing the Soviet version of Captain America. He can\u2019t stop thinking of his glory days and is always looking for a way to get back into the action. Geraldine Viswanathan (Drive-Away Dolls) does good work as Valentina\u2019s assistant Mel, a yes woman who starts to question the morality of her boss\u2019 actions. As the primary antagonist, Dreyfus does not stand out among the main human villains of the MCU. She\u2019s essentially another illustration of the adage \u201cabsolute power corrupts absolutely\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The effect in Thunderbolts*<\/strong> aren\u2019t all that special. It\u2019s the standard CGI we\u2019ve seen in every Marvel movie. They\u2019re rendered even less special by the film\u2019s drab visual palette. It doesn\u2019t look at all like a comic book brought to life. The action scenes have a lazy, bored quality to them. The whole movie lacks energy. A lot of the time, it\u2019s just going through the motions. Still, it\u2019s better than most of the recent Marvel offerings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The first of the big summer movies, Thunderbolts*<\/strong> isn\u2019t all that bad. It\u2019s not great either. It doesn\u2019t bring anything new to the table as far as the superhero genre goes. It doesn\u2019t live up to its potential, but it\u2019s still entertaining enough to justify the price of a bargain matinee ticket.<\/p>\n

P.S. Yes, there is an end credits scene and it\u2019s worth sticking around for.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thunderbolts* (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Marvel\/Action-Adventure-Sci-Fi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 126 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (strong violence, language, thematic elements, some suggestive and drug references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jake Schreier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Son Lux\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Andrew Droz Palermo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 2, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Thunderbolts-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11809"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11815,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11809\/revisions\/11815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}