Thunderbolts* (Theaters)
A grim, faux-serious Marvel slog that trades joy and imagination for recycled trauma themes and lifeless team-ups.
What’s it about? After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap, an unconventional team of antiheroes must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts.
Who it’s for? Marvel completionists, Florence Pugh superfans, people curious as to what the Avengers would look like if they went to therapy, fans of team-up superhero movies
Who should avoid? Those tired of Marvel, if you’re looking for something fresh, fans of Sebastian Stan’s more serious work, if you’re expecting an indie director to give this an exciting authorial stamp
Watch if you like: The Suicide Squad, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Boys, The Avengers
News and Notes:
Released today
Schmear’s Verdict: Thunderbolts is a clunky, humorless slog that mistakes fake-deep trauma themes for substance, leaving Marvel’s latest feeling both joyless and unnecessary.
Thunderbolts* might as well be called The Depressed Avengers or Marvel Goes to Therapy. It has the patina of seriousness and emotion, but it’s wrapped in a disingenuous superhero package that basically swipes the plot of Inside Out 2. Though it lands in an okay place by the end, this was a tough sit.
At heart, the problem is that Marvel still clings to its quippy, sardonic humor — and that well has run bone-dry. This is basically 2021’s Suicide Squad, but where James Gunn’s underrated gonzo B-movie had pulpy imagination and low-stakes charm, Thunderbolts* clunkily attempts to grapple with mental health issues in a bizarre way. Addressing that topic isn’t the problem — but doing it in such a predictably Marvel, half-serious, half-silly manner left a sour taste.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays the Viola Davis role here, but it’s rough to watch. Sure, she’s funny, basically in Veep mode, but this isn’t Armando Iannucci or Dave Mandel writing sharp, biting dialogue. And the boss-assistant dynamic with Geraldine Viswanathan is pure cringe.
In Thunderbolts*, we follow a group of B-team heroes, among them Florence Pugh, David Harbour (solid), Wyatt Russell, and Sebastian Stan — no one to light your world on fire. Stan as Bucky Barnes might as well be called the Mailman for how shamelessly he mails in his performance, how visibly little he wants to be here. The irony is made more resounding by the fact that Stan just threw himself so fully into two of 2024’s best characters and performances in two of the year’s finest films: A Different Man and The Apprentice.
The team is thrown together to face… well, something: a mysterious figure named Bob — played by Lewis Pullman, reprising his Top Gun: Maverick name — who has the uncanny power to show people their worst nightmares. That’s mildly interesting, but the mystery surrounding him is thin and dribbled out so slowly that it’s hard to really care.
The first act’s “Meet Ugly” is so uninspired, it had me wondering what Thunderbolts* is actually adding to the genre. Like too many recent Marvel projects, there’s no sense of place — just characters digitally pasted into locations, talking past one another. Jake Schreier (Beef) is the latest talented indie director flattened by the Marvel machine. I honestly couldn’t tell what, if anything, here was distinct or new, a much-discussed problem for Marvel’s factory-line productions.
Weirdly, part of my frustration came from how competently made Thunderbolts* is — it feels emotional and dramatic, but ultimately isn’t. Its attempts to explore ideas about trauma and mental health land with a thud, making the whole thing feel fraudulent rather than genuinely moving.
In the theater, I could hardly believe it, but I found myself wishing for Deadpool & Wolverine instead, with its cynical, self-aware nihilism. That movie knew it was a big joke and leaned into it, laughing at itself and its audience. Thunderbolts*, by contrast, wants you to think it has something profound to say. But by the time it reveals its heart, it’s so belabored and ridiculous the impact barely registers.
The script is rough. The humor falls flat, the character beats feel forced, and I found myself longing for Deadpool & Wolverine’s sly, nasty wink. There are some interesting late-film moments — dream sequences, the hammering home of its depression themes — and they’re momentarily effective. But it’s too little, too late to save the film’s unevenness.
As Lewis Pullman’s character transforms into the Void and starts disappearing people in New York, I honestly kind of wanted him to just disappear me too. We’ve reached peak trauma-obsession in horror — now it’s infecting superhero films too? Florence Pugh was put through the wringer in Midsommar; Thunderbolts* sends her into the darkness again, but this time in a far less original, less artful film.
Thank God we’ve got Fantastic Four on the horizon, promising something shiny, fun, silly, and retro — exactly the kind of reset button I (and Marvel) need, not the gritty, “in our feelings” superhero film that Thunderbolts* tries to be.
