Thunderbolts* (2025) Movie Review NO SPOILERS: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, Olga Kurylenko, Wyatt Russell

Plot

Thunderbolts*. BTW, what is the asterisk about? Aren’t you wondering? But the movie will tell you. This is a NON SPOILER Review, so I will NOT tell you. But that asterisk is very important. But here’s the plot. Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is the Director of the CIA, and she’s facing impeachment. Like many high-level government officials, she has skeletons in her closet. The ‘skeletons’ include Yelena (Florence Pugh), the U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and a regular guy named Bob (Lewis Pullman). They don’t know it, but Valentina sent them on a mission to kill each other. They tried to figure out what the f*** is happening here. They tried to team up and maybe get revenge on Valentina. Along with the shenanigans, Yelena’s Dad, Alexei (David Harbour), the Red Guardian, also joins the fun, along with Brooklyn Congressman, Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). But aside from them, Valentina’s skeletons include a failed superhero experiment called Sentry. Valentina envisioned Sentry to be her ‘Golden Boy,’ an all-powerful superhero who would solve all problems now that the Avengers are gone. He also answers to Valentina, and only Valentina. But Sentry has mental health and emotional problems that could hurt A LOT of people. So the group, who don’t even know or like each other, have to form a team to solve the Sentry problem.

Review

The Avengers were about honorable people who wanted to be heroes. Thunderbolts is about people who committed sins and crimes against humanity. However, everyone deserves a second chance. Or even a third, fourth, or fifth chance. These imperfect people want to CHANGE and BE BETTER moving forward. They can be heroes, too. And I LIKED THUNDERBOLTS more than I expected. I liked it better than Fantastic Four: First Steps.

But REAL TALK. Everything after Endgame was a mixed bag. But Thunderbolts* is VERY GOOD. The banter between the team is very funny and relatable. It’s like a typical millennial friends group. But the movie also goes deep into mental health, depression, and the SHAME you might feel when you FACE YOUR FEARS or GO for a SECOND CHANCE. Facing your feelings is HARD, ya’ll. So the movie switches between the wacky Marvel banter and serious discussions about feelings and mental health. It’s great.

A lot of the action scenes seem to be made with PRACTICAL EFFECTS. And I LOVE that. I’m not a fan of CGI slop. There’s a CGI emptiness to many of these BIG high special effects movies. They did not do that here. They kept many action scenes with practical effects.

Even when they tackled HEAVY issues like DEPRESSION and CHILDHOOD TRAUMA, it does not feel like a downer. It does not bring YOU, the audience, down. But you feel the impact of the scenes.

Do you need to do homework before watching Thunderbolts*? That is, do you need to watch all the Marvel movies and series before you could watch this? I would say NO. It HELPS if you’ve seen everything. But it does not diminish your enjoyment if you haven’t seen them.

It’s cool that they made a GREAT movie without ‘main characters’ like Thor, Iron Man, or Captain America. Thunderbolts* are the action figures you find under your couch.

I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina. It’s like Evil Veep. Nick Fury is a tough authority figure, but he’s very honorable. Valentina is sus. She has no problem eliminating anyone , good or bad guys alike.

The conclusion of the movie did not end with ‘Who has the strongest punch.’ It’s not like a wrestling match. They had to be cunning, vulnerable, and emotional. They had to use their BRAINS and HEARTS to win.

Jays Ratings — 90%

Rotten Tomatoes — 88%

IMDB — 7.7 of 10

Metacritic — 68

Letterboxd — 3.8 of 5

Thunderbolts*

Budget: $180 Million

Box Office: $384.4 Million

Fantastic Four First Steps

Budget: $229.6 Million

Box Office: $521.9 Million

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