Thunderbolts*: Never Strikes Twice in the Same Place

Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), the original Black Widow’s adopted sister and fellow assassin, feels like there is a void in her.  At first she thought it was from her sister’s death, but as she completes her missions for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), she thinks it is from something else missing.  On the advice of her father, The Red Guardian (David Harbour) she plans on being more of a hero instead of a “Black Ops” operative.  She has one more mission, but it ends up possibly being her last and she ends up fighting and then teaming up with her fellow operatives, Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a woman who can make her body intangible as well as invisible for short periods of time; U.S. Agent / John Walker (Wyatt Russell), a dime-store knock off version of Captain America who took the super soldier serum, but also is kind of a super jerk; Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) an assassin who can mimic any fighting style she sees; and Bob (Lewis Pullman) who is seemingly an innocent bystander that gets sucked into the action, but ends up being so much more.  After escaping their initial danger, the newly formed team meets up with Red Guardian, the Russian Super Soldier and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) a.k.a. The Winter Soldier who was also given the Super Soldier Serum.  Now dubbed the Thunderbolts, they must put aside their differences and work through their pasts in order to protect New York against a new and very powerful threat.

Thunderbolts* is a 2025 superhero film existing within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and features mainly anti-heroes or villains from previous films and television shows coming together to form a family and a team.  Released on May 2^nd, 2025, the film is loosely based on the Marvel Comic of the same name and was written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo and directed by Jake Schreier.  The film is getting mostly positive reviews with Bob Mondello of NPR saying, “a decently effective blend of misfit mercenaries and pop psychology”.  Ayaan Paul Chowdhury of The Hindu calls it “messy, meandering, and emotionally lopsided, but Thunderbolts* feels like it was made by people who wanted to be there. That’s more than can be said for most Marvel projects in recent memory.” And Jane Coyle of the Associated Press wrote, “All the assembled parts here, including an especially high-quality cast (even Wendell Pierce!) work together seamlessly in a way that Marvel hasn’t in some time. Most of all, Pugh commands every bit of the movie.” And just in case you are curious, the “*” in the name stands for the film’s real title…but I won’t give that away!

I mainly agree with the critics on this one, it is an entertaining movie, and Florence Pugh is most definitely the lead of this movie.  Her character is multidimensional with deep troubling emotions, but also a sarcastic wit that keeps the film fun when it could be really depressing.  I very much enjoyed the psychological aspects of the story, and the film moves at a good pace with a great mixture of comedy, drama and action.  The two issues I have with the film, is not getting enough of Sentry, a powerful new character introduced and the overall film was just missing a certain “Wow’ factor.  Where I did get teary eyed in several scenes, mainly due to the great emotional connections that Pugh makes with multiple characters and the audience, I never felt that tingly feeling that signals something special is happening on screen, something remarkable.  I fully enjoyed this film, but it just didn’t give me the same feelings from when I saw the first Avengers movie.  I am excited to see these characters return in upcoming films and stick around for the end credits scene! There is a mid-credits scene and an after-credits scene.