I’ve heard a lot of good things about Thunderbolts*, the latest Marvel movie opening this week—but you never really know with those early reactions. They could be fanboys or shills, so you always have to take them with a grain of salt. But man, did they get it right.
The film kicks off with an action-packed sequence featuring Yelena (Florence Pugh) on a mission for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). She’s jumping off buildings, shooting armed guards—all while having a bit of an identity crisis.
When Valentina sends her on a new mission deep inside a mountain bunker, Yelena quickly finds out she’s not alone. U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and a guy named Bob (Lewis Pullman) are already there—and it’s a trap. They escape—because, come on, it’s a Marvel movie—but Bob, after revealing that he has superpowers, ends up captured.
Meanwhile, Bucky—now a first-year Congressman—has teamed up with another member of Congress (Wendell Pierce) in an effort to impeach Valentina as head of the CIA. But when the full extent of Bob’s power becomes clear and Valentina’s involvement is exposed, Bucky and the gang—now including Red Guardian (David Harbour)—reluctantly join forces to stop him.
Directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson, the film feels like early Marvel—more in the spirit of the first Ant-Man or Guardians of the Galaxy—where story and character relationships come first. Most of these characters had rough childhoods, and all of them just want to be loved, to feel whole—not just like machines. That’s an easy idea to write, but hard to execute. Not here.
There’s a scene where Yelena tells Red Guardian, her father, how she’s not happy and just wants to belong. It’s heartbreaking. It would be heartbreaking in any drama—but somehow it hits harder here, maybe because Pugh, who is the heart and soul of the film, is such a phenomenal actor. She kills—literally and emotionally—in every scene she’s in.
Harbour is equally great, with more laugh-out-loud moments than I can remember. John-Kamen’s Ghost really grew on me as the film progressed and Pullman’s Bob/Sentry reminded me of Will Poulter’s Warlock in Guardians 3—young, volatile, immensely powerful, and emotionally out of their depth.
And don’t forget to stay through the credits. There are two post-credit scenes you absolutely don’t want to miss.
