Thunderbolts* looks like a typical Marvel team-up movie from the trailers, but it's actually a superhero therapy session.
The movie follows a CIA team put together by Valentina de Fontaine. The squad includes Yelena Belova (Black Widow's sister), Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier), Red Guardian (the fake Russian Captain America), Ghost (the phasing woman from Ant-Man), John Walker (the failed Captain America), and Taskmaster. They're all sent on a mission to Malaysia to find this guy named Bob Reynolds.
Bob seems like a gentle, confused man who's lost his memory. But he's actually The Sentry, someone with god-like powers. The problem is Bob has severe depression and trauma, which creates this evil alter-ego called The Void. The Void is literally Bob's depression and self-hatred turned into a terrifying monster that can destroy everything.
As the team chases Bob from Malaysia to Utah, they start uncovering his buried memories and their own painful pasts. The movie gets really surreal when they end up inside Bob's mind, walking through what the film calls "shame rooms" Each character has to face their worst memories: Yelena relives being trained as a child assassin, Walker sees his broken family, Red Guardian is back in prison, Ghost remembers being an unwanted orphan, Bucky recalls guilt from his childhood, and even Valentina faces her father's death.
Instead of beating up the bad guy, Yelena reaches Bob through compassion and shared trauma. She shows him he's not alone in his pain, which helps him control The Void. The movie ends with the team becoming "The New Avengers" though people aren't totally happy about it.
Florence Pugh absolutely steals this movie. She is funny, tough, but also heartbreakingly vulnerable. Her breakdown scene asking her father when he last felt joy is genuinely moving and emotionally powerful. She carries the entire film on her shoulders and makes you care about everyone else too.
Lewis Pullman plays Bob/Sentry and does an amazing job showing someone struggling with severe mental health issues. Even though I wanted Steven Yeun to keep the role, Pullman brings this raw, relatable energy that makes Bob feel real. The Void sequences are genuinely terrifying - like Marvel made a horror movie about depression.
The "shame rooms" are the movie's best and weirdest part. They're designed like a fever dream, inspired by movies like Being John Malkovich. Seeing Ghost as a lonely orphan or Bucky as a guilty Boy Scout is both creative and emotionally devastating.
But the movie has real problems. Taskmaster gets killed off in the first few minutes, which felt cheap and lazy. The character barely gets any development or screen time before being eliminated. Ghost has cool powers but barely does anything useful - she's basically just there to move the plot along. John Walker and Red Guardian crack too many jokes when the movie is trying to be serious about trauma and depression.
The ending bothered some people because instead of a big fight, they basically "hug away" the villain. Some found it anticlimactic, though I appreciated that we didn't get another generic beat up the villain finale.
Director Jake Schreier brings this indie, artistic feel that's totally different from typical Marvel movies. The camera stays focused on people's pain instead of rushing to the next joke. Son Lux's sad, moody music kept me emotionally connected throughout - I even stayed through the credits just to hear more of it.
What makes this movie special is how it treats mental health as the real villain. Bob's depression isn't just backstory - it's literally trying to destroy him and everyone around him. The movie's message is that, trauma and shame can be as dangerous as any supervillain, but they can also be defeated through connection and understanding.
I loved that Marvel finally took a real creative risk. Even when it doesn't work perfectly, it's bold and different.
The ending where this movie rebrands to "The New Avengers" annoyed me, it felt like Disney was trying to replace Sam Wilson's Captain America with a corporate knock off team. The '*' now made sense, the whole movie was just a setup to turn the team into "The New Avengers"
Thunderbolts* isn't the best Marvel movie for action or spectacle, but it might be the most human one they have ever made. It's about broken people learning that it's okay to not be okay, as long as you're not alone.
The movie succeeds when it trusts its emotional story, and fails when it falls back on Marvel formula. It's a superhero film that dares to say sometimes the most heroic thing you can do is just keep going and help others who are struggling too.