News Hub for Indian Animation VFX Comics Gaming Merchandising Applications Ecosystem
Our rating: Maza aaya 👌
This isn’t your typical “losers unite to fight evil” story. It’s about people who are emotional wrecks walking around in cool costumes who haven’t dealt with their trauma at all. And they form this team, reluctantly…for Bob.
The movie starts with actress Florence Pugh’s Yelena finding no satisfaction from her secret agent gig. So she’s trying to connect with her dad Alexei, the Red Guardian (played by David Harbour), looking for some kinda life purpose. That leads Yelena to her handler Valentina De Fontaine (or Val) – played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus who’s usually awesome but here she’s basically Cruella De Vil in a pantsuit – and she begs for a more public mission, which Yelena believes will help her deal with her assassin past. Val agrees on a condition that she takes up one last job, which leads them to Bob and his crazy Sentry powers. All major characters end up on their own missions with Yelena, unbeknownst to each other. But all goes awry and these assassins are forced to team up into a not-so-super super team.
Themes of shame and unresolved childhood trauma are explored throughout, with sometimes unnecessary humour from time to time. In the first half the tone remains light and Harbour’s naturally funny performance saves a lot of scenes from falling flat. But when the movie gets serious, the jokes seem forced and break the tone. Why Marvel continues to do this, is beyond me.
The movie gets way more interesting when actor Sebastian Stan shows up as Congressman (Bucky) Barnes. He’s like the grizzled veteran anti-hero who has to knock some sense into these dysfunctional disasters. The worst treatment was given to the actress Hannah John-Kamen. No backstory, no redemption arc – her character was literally a ghost in the movie (geddit?). Ghosted in her own movie :D. There’s also this part about the government wanting Val to follow the law and their attempt to control her. They just completely forget about that, it becomes completely irrelevant like 2024’s Bade Miyan Chote Miyan.
Yelena and Bob/Sentry’s past become the major part of the third act when the villain just starts wrecking all of New York by tapping into everyone’s worst fears. The big message here is to seek therapy, with help from those around you. Trying to fix your trauma alone in your echo chamber is not the way, if you’ve hit rock bottom.
There is a surprising set up at the end, and yes, post-credit scenes too – one of them is actually important for the next phase.
Overall, Thunderbolts* is a good mercenary group therapy session.
Directed by Jake Schreier, the film is produced by Kevin Feige. Louis D’Esposito, Brain Chapek, and Jason Tamez are the executive producers. The film will be out in cinemas on 1 May 2025.
(This article has been written by AnimationXpress consultant Taher Siamwala)
