Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for “Thunderbolts*.”
As the final movie installment of Marvel’s Phase Five, “Thunderbolts*” — or now, as the cast revealed, “*The New Avengers” — released in theaters in the United States on May 2. While the movie follows the almost traditional superhero storyline featuring anti-heroes, “Thunderbolts*” takes a step in a new direction by directly exploring topics of mental health and knowing one’s worth.
The movie, much like its release order, takes place after the events of “Captain America: Brave New World,” with the impeachment of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the current head of the CIA. To clean up de Fontaine’s illegal activities, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr a.k.a Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and Antonia Dreykov a.k.a Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) — all past workers of de Fontaine’s — are brought together to kill each other. With the death of Taskmaster minutes after appearing on screen, the group realizes the intentions behind them being brought together and begin joining forces, with the help of Alexei Shostakov a.k.a Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), to take down de Fontaine.
On all levels, “Thunderbolts*” hits the mark. While the trailer looked incredibly well-done through action-packed sequences, so did the disappointing “Captain America: Brave New World” and “Thor: Love and Thunder;” there was still reason for fans to be skeptical. However, “Thunderbolts*” is everything the trailer showed and so much more. It is entertaining and humorous, with the right balance between comedy and serious emotion. The run time is almost perfect, and the story is well-written, which isn’t something a lot of Marvel movies in the past five years have been able to show. The plot is thought out and, unlike past Marvel films, makes sense for all the characters in the movie.
Since the protagonists of the film are all anti-heroes, one of the main focal points is dealing with how the characters can feel like an actual hero with their villainous past. The film handles these moments of doubt and self-reflection well. The sentimental themes that the anti-heroes share help the group click together as the movie progresses and is a plot point that hasn’t really been explored by Marvel, other than in the Disney+ original series “Loki.” The addition of mental health themes also helps to further this concept and makes the movie much more emotionally complex.
The discussion of mental health is probably the best thing about this movie, because of the emotional impact it has on the audience. With a set of characters that have all had harsh pasts, and thus have done bad things as a result, it is interesting to see how it all affects them in the movie and how they all struggle with feeling alone in the world. Forms of depression were also discussed, especially with the character Robert “Bob” Reynolds (Lewis Pullman), who becomes the hero Sentry and counterpart, Void. Sentry embodies the feelings of those super high highs, of feeling happy and almost invincible, while Void embodies depressive episodes of the super low lows. It is incredible to see and makes for a much more touching movie.
Movies like “Thunderbolts*” are always a blast because of the complex characters. They all have a backstory as a villain — or villain-adjacent — in previous Marvel projects. To see all these characters return in such a complex group dynamic is entertaining and done incredibly well, as these are all characters that have the comedic side character routine down perfectly.
However, like in previous Marvel productions, Belova completely steals the spotlight. Aside from Barnes, she has the most complex character background and arc throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Growing up, Belova was taken from her home and forced to grow up in the Red Room, which trained girls from a young age to become assassins known as Black Widows. This also happened to her adopted sister Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) who viewers know from prior Marvel movies. Like Romanoff, Belova was brutally trained from a young age and later brainwashed to follow orders. Belova’s wit and sarcastic quips of past movies are still there, but “Thunderbolts*” shows a much more vulnerable and broken side of Belova as well, while she tries to grapple with her sister’s death and everything she has done since she was a child in the Red Room. It is also a joy to watch her interactions with Reynolds, as their chemistry is off the charts and they constantly help each other in different ways.
The only thing that falls short with “Thunderbolts*” is how much screen time is divided amongst the group. There are some characters — like Walker, Belova and Red Guardian — with a lot of screen time allocated for the exploration of their character, giving audiences the chance to sympathize more with them. However, there were other times where either there wasn’t enough screen time with a character, or there was enough, yet their storyline lacked the same emotional depth.
Ghost, who was first introduced back in 2018 in “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” is one of those characters. “Thunderbolts*” is the first project she has reappeared in since then, and it would seem obvious that she would get a good amount of screen time to dive back into her character, allowing viewers to see an even bigger picture of her backstory and what she’s been doing since “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” That is unfortunately not the case, as the screen time for her character is incredibly lacking and doesn’t give audiences the deeper connection they have with other characters that have been in the MCU for years.
Overall, “Thunderbolts*” is a hit and is executed with much more thought and care than previous movies since “Avengers: Endgame,” as it marked the end of what many people believed was Marvel’s peak. Throughout its run time, the movie is continuously engaging and the focus is clearly to make a good movie that fleshes out the MCU timeline. It is hopefully the bright light at the end of the tunnel for Marvel, though similar has been said for many of Phase Four and Phase Five Marvel movies that were just as good as “Thunderbolts*.” Marvel has another chance to break out of its slump with the Disney+ original miniseries “Ironheart” releasing in June, marking the end of Phase Five, and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” releasing in July, as the first project in Phase Six.
Jocelyn Cosgrove is an Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer. She can be reached at jmcosgro@uci.edu.
Edited by Corinna Chin and Mia Noergaard.