“The Thunderbolts*” written by Eric Pearson and directed by Jake Schreier, is an action-packed Marvel superhero film that shows how mental health can be compromised.
It’s reminiscent of psychological dramas that encapsulate what it means to be human. “The Thunderbolts*” fully demonstrates how serious Marvel can become on the big screen.
It’s set in 2027, after the events of “Captain America: Brave New World” but before “Avengers: Doomsday.” An unconventional team of antiheroes, featuring Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, John Walker, and Taskmaster, is forced to work together.
The film balances comedy with darker themes, emphasizing mental health. It explores its characters’ humanity, revealing their struggles with emotions and communication. Though hesitant to confront their vulnerabilities at first, the team’s dynamics deepens as they grapple with trust, adding emotional weight to the action-driven narrative.
They are considered outcasts compared to the original Avengers, yet draw parallels to the family dynamic. Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, the director of the C.I.A. and chairwoman of O.X.E., a black ops company, first sets the team up in a death trap.
Yelena Belova, a Black Widow, knows isolation very well as she grew up as a child spy. While in the death trap with the rest of the team, she connects with a human lab rat named Bob, whom they found inside a reinforced box. The team is created with two goals in mind. They want to take down and reveal Valentina’s black ops projects and save Bob from her control.
Their rescue mission forces the team to confront their darkest memories, reckoning with past traumas. Though former villains, they realize isolation isn’t sustainable—growth demands vulnerability. The film smartly weaves redemption arcs into the action, balancing superhero thrillers with hard-won emotional breakthroughs.
The second act focuses on the team’s desperate attempt to save Bob from his mental self-destruction, which the Void causes, the realm-changing powers he gains when depressed. He fights against his father’s past abuse in his realm of nightmares. His powers fluctuate with his depressive episodes—a revelation that adds emotional stakes. The dynamic explores trauma’s lingering grip, grounding the superhero spectacle in raw, human struggle.
The writing argues that trust, not tactics, defines true teamwork. Yelena’s raw confrontation with her absent father lays bare Marvel’s emotional rollercoaster: grief metastasizes into isolation. Her bond with Bob isn’t just camaraderie–it’s a mirror reflecting how trauma, when unspoken, becomes its supervillain.
Marvel’s screening of psychological horror provided a stark contrast to previous MCU films. Themes involving murder, abuse, and mental health create a movie that extends from the general superhero genre and leans into a redemption arc for the anti-hero team.
The film weaponizes vulnerability by using trauma as an active antagonist. Bob’s Void represents Marvel’s boldest metaphor yet: mental health crises as unwinnable battles. That the team tears through their traumatic past for him subverts genre expectations.
The outcasts, once viewed as mercenaries, now collaborated to bring their friend back home in a heroic effort. True redemption lies in communal healing, not solitary heroics. Framing healthy relationships as superpowers delivers a radical thesis for the genre: connection, not combat, is the ultimate victory over darkness.
Schreier’s directing captures the audience using action, drama, and lasting shots of the team working together in a ruined New York, and through the life-saving actions taken to save civilians in peril.
It is structured parallel to the original Avengers, “The Thunderbolts*” now carrying their legacy as a new team. The music provides a liberating feeling of emotion that reflects how mental health can be supported by creating lasting bonds. The sound charts emotional breakthroughs, making audible the invisible work of healing. A radical departure from Marvel’s usual bombast.
The post-credit sequences are shot by the Russo brothers, prominent MCU film directors who had shot the previous main Avengers movies.
It is more than just a teaser, showcasing another team, The Fantastic Four’s spaceship entering the airspace of “The Thunderbolts*.” The Russo brothers are set to film the upcoming Avengers arc that will begin in 2026. However, Schreier’s fresh take on a team ensemble shows how dark and serious Marvel can take on mental health.
Reviewed at AMC 14, Saratoga, May 4, 2025. MPA rating: PG-13. Running time: 126 MIN.
Production: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Crew: Director: Jake Schreier. Screenplay: Eric Pearson, Lee Sung Jin, Joanna Calo. Music: Son Lux. Editor: Harry Yoon, Angela Catanzaro.
With: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lewis Pullman, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen, Olga Kurylenko.
