(L-R): Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) in Marvel Studios' THUNDERBOLTS*. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2024 MARVEL.
The original comic book version of the team, called the "Thunderbolts," debuted in the late1990s focused on supervillains in disguise as superheroes, with most of them turning on their leader and going full-on good guys. However, the MCU version of the Thunderbolts comprises more anti-hero types, not straight-up evildoers.
Julia Dreyfuss plays Valentina Allegra De Fontaine, the current head of the CIA. CIA directors tend not to be squeaky clean types, but Valentina is downright selfish and abusive of the power the position grants her. She has agendas of her own and isn’t above using operatives like our maladjusted heroes to further them along. She does, however, have great PR and has held on to the post for so long.
The movie also stars Florence Pugh as Ylena Belova, who, for all practical purposes, is the MCU’s current Black Widow, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, aka The Winter Soldier, and David Harbour as the Red Guardian, Hanna John-Kamen as Ghost, and Wyatt Russell as John Walker, the USAgent.
Also reprising her MCU role is Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, and making his first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Lewis Pullman as Bob.As you can tell from the lineup, these people do not neatly slot into the hero stereotype.
They’ve all done questionable things for questionable people with very questionable reasons.To one extent or another, they have all cheated, lied, and oftentimes even worse.
But if there’s something people relate to more than a true underdog story, it's a redemption arc, and every single one of these characters gets set on theirs. Some are more interesting or farther along than others, but everyone hops on the wagon.
Ylena, in particular, is the heart of the film, with her grief and sense of aimlessness from the loss of her sister Natasha, the original Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). Though she can knock heads with the best of them, she is still the little girl with problems and daddy issues.
Red Guardian can’t seem to leave his halcyon days behind. He wasn’t the best role model to Ylena, but now he’s trying to make up for it in between jobs.You can go down the line, but the father-daughter and nostalgia dynamic are what really anchor the movie and give it a more relatable, human angle, which comes in handy when the film goes full-on Inception/Alice In Wonderland toward the end.
The movie is like Alcoholics Anonymous for the MCU, with broken, dysfunctional people laying out their problems and issues right before being called to do better and save the world. Dysfunctional or not, these not-quite-heroes step up to the plate.
Thunderbolts is a blast of a film, not quite as large in scope as some of the others, as the leads are mostly grounded, street-level heroes, but they show they have a lot of heart. The erratic group dynamic offers many opportunities for humor between the action set-pieces, revealing many character moments that drive interest and move the film forward.
They don’t all reach the end of their absolution or vindication, but the movie puts them on that road to redemption. By the end, though, the team earns its spot on the Wheaties Box. As always with a Marvel movie, staying until the end credits roll would serve you well.
You won’t want to miss the clip. "Thunderbolts" is now in cinemas everywhere.