Quote from Alex bobby on May 3, 2025, 5:41 AM

Thunderbolts*: The MCU’s Ragtag Redemption Story

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been limping through a creative dry spell since Avengers: Endgame drew a curtain on its first grand saga. In its post-blip years, Marvel has favoured quantity over quality, flooding audiences with a barrage of films and shows—often at the cost of emotional coherence and narrative clarity. But now, with Thunderbolts*—its 36th film and the Phase Five finale—Marvel may have finally hit the brakes just enough to let its characters breathe again.

Thunderbolts* is Marvel’s answer to The Suicide Squad, but with just enough of its own DNA to avoid feeling like a cheap imitation. Led by Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, the film is a stripped-down, gritty mission story that trades universe-spanning stakes for personal ones. From its opening moments, with Yelena confessing to a gnawing emptiness inside her, the film sets a different tone—a story not just about another big bad, but about the quiet war within.

Yelena, weary and detached, signs up for one final mission under the thumb of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the shady CIA director who’s on the verge of being ousted. Promised freedom after this assignment, Yelena joins a volatile mix of fellow "heroes": John Walker/US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and the enigmatic Bob (Lewis Pullman)—yet another failed super-soldier experiment. It’s clear early on they’ve been set up to eliminate each other as part of Fontaine’s last-ditch cleanup job.

Instead, the dysfunctional crew survives, rallies, and goes rogue. Their escape draws in Yelena’s surrogate father Red Guardian (David Harbour) and a politically rebranded Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), who’s on his own mission to bring Fontaine down. Together, they form a misfit team trying to stop a moral collapse—both personal and global.

Director Jake Schreier (Beef, Robot & Frank) brings a refreshingly grounded perspective to this film, emphasizing character over spectacle. With a script from The Bear showrunner Joanna Calo and Marvel regular Eric Pearson, Thunderbolts* dodges the MCU’s worst tendencies: convoluted multiverse exposition, bloated ensemble casting, and excessive CGI-fueled chaos. It’s not entirely free of those tropes—yes, the finale still falls into a familiar save-the-world structure—but it gets closer than recent entries to recapturing the MCU’s early spark.

Florence Pugh is, predictably, the glue that holds this project together. Whether she’s brooding on top of Kuala Lumpur’s Merdeka 118 or trading deadpan banter with Pullman’s emotionally stunted Bob, she gives every moment weight. Her chemistry with the ensemble—especially Harbour and Pullman—grounds the film in something sincere. Pugh’s Yelena is tired, traumatised, and longing for meaning in a world that keeps demanding she be a weapon. She embodies the kind of emotional authenticity the MCU has often lost in its pursuit of bigger and louder.

Harbour brings levity and pathos in equal measure, leaning into Red Guardian’s washed-up dad vibes with gusto. Julia Louis-Dreyfus relishes her role as Fontaine, channelling a dark, manipulative version of her Veep alter ego. Stan’s Bucky gets his moments too, including a Terminator-esque hallway sequence that offers just enough grit to satisfy long-time fans.

Still, not everyone gets a chance to shine. John-Kamen’s Ghost and Kurylenko’s Taskmaster remain criminally underdeveloped, victims of a script that occasionally forgets it’s juggling an ensemble. Yet these shortcomings feel less glaring in a film more focused on mood and relationships than tying into a dozen other Marvel properties.

Thematically, Thunderbolts is about trauma, isolation, and learning to accept help. Its final act, while rushed, carries a metaphorical heft—depression, loneliness, and emotional scars are rendered as literal villains. It’s a risky narrative move, one that may not land with all viewers, especially given its occasionally clumsy treatment of mental health. But thanks to Pugh’s performance, the film earns more emotional resonance than it probably should.

And about that confounding asterisk in the title—yes, it’s explained. Without spoiling the reveal, let’s just say it’s both a narrative beat and a tongue-in-cheek jab at the MCU’s own self-awareness. Whether you find it clever or just annoying will depend on your tolerance for Marvel’s meta-winking.

Ultimately, Thunderbolts* doesn’t reinvent the MCU, but it doesn’t need to. It simply remembers what made the franchise work in the first place: great characters, a balance of humour and heart, and a willingness to tell stories that don’t have to involve the end of the universe. It’s a reminder that the MCU can still surprise us—not with its scale, but with its sincerity.

Is it enough to restore full faith in the franchise? Not quite. But it’s a step in the right direction. And if Marvel keeps leaning into messier, more grounded stories like this, the Endgame era may not be the end of everything after all.

Conclusion

Thunderbolts* doesn’t reinvent the Marvel wheel, but it does manage to steer the franchise back toward something more grounded, more human, and—crucially—more fun. With Florence Pugh anchoring a sharp cast and a tighter, character-driven story, it’s a refreshing break from the overstuffed spectacle that’s defined the MCU in recent years. While it may not be enough to fully restore faith in the ongoing saga, it’s a hopeful sign that Marvel hasn’t forgotten how to tell meaningful stories on a smaller scale. If Thunderbolts* proves anything, it’s that with the right balance of humour, heart, and character focus, there’s still life left in the MCU—asterisk and all.