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Thunderbolts* opens with a decent enough scene with Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh – We Live In Time), since after the actress physically jumped off the Merdeka 118 building in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – and on behalf of CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus – You People), she breaks into lab, kills all the guards – with Pugh doing her own stunts for this, too – and blows it up, but saves the hamster.
For reasons I forget, The Avengers have been accused of wrong doing – hence why none of them is here – and it’s clear what their crime is: The making of so many shit movies, in recent times!
However, Florence gets a pass, looking at her most foxy, with her cute, upturned nose, and in a subsequent fight scene where she basically meets all the other Thunderbolts – including Captain America reject John Walker (Wyatt Russell – Monarch: Legacy of Monsters), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen – SAS: Red Notice), Antonia Dreykov/Tskmaster (Olga Kurylenko – Momentum), accidental tourist “Bob” (Lewis Pullman – Salem’s Lot (2024)) – with Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour – Gran Turismo) later coming along for the ride.
Two questions, though: Since they’ve been put up against each other, who set them up?
And for the other, when it comes to all the fight scenes in this two-hour $180m-fest, how come they don’t achieve anything other than basic kicking and punching?! The yawning is starting…
Oh, a third question: How come Pugh and Harbour can’t achieve any better vocal range than ‘Allo ‘Allo-quality cod-Russian accents?
I didn’t grasp why Valentina was up before the beak in an impeachment inquiry, so maybe there’s a sideplot in a TV series spinoff I didn’t watch which explained that. Either way, she brings out her inner Elaine Benes to try and charm her way out of it, and the only question is whether or not lickspittle assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan – Drive-Away Dolls) will testify against her.
Along the way, various members of the team are forced to confront elements of their past, a particular entity comes along to turn everyone into shadows, and when it comes to Lewis Pullman, all I could think about is just how much he looks like his Dad, Bill Pullman!
Stupidity kicks in when Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan – The Apprentice, A Different Man) has a serum discussion with Red Guardian, which is very muted, compared to the trailer. He tells the Russian that his serum was “Hydra”, with the reaction on the trailer being all, “AAAAH! HYDRA!”, but in the film, they’ve moronically gone for an alternate take where they basically mumble their lines, with Red Guardian’s reaction being more, “Oh, right…”, before the plot moves on.
The same happened in Captain America: Brave New World between Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford, as I described in that review for their scene, and similarly, for Captain Howard in Bad Boys: Ride Or Die.
However, while I expected to enjoy Thunderbolts* by comparison to February’s installment, instead, it all felt very “seen it all before”, with nothing new added, and comes across as boring.
Come on, now, when you’re paying at least $180m to make a film (plus whatever they’re not disclosing, since the last film was the same, but hasn’t declared the reshoots costs), you need to have an astounding script and plot, not just copy-paste the usual.
Plus, when it comes to the gang sorting out the main situation that we’ve all come to see, like a Doctor Who episode, the resolution takes about five minutes, and results in yet another skyscraper needing a brand new set of windows and other furniture, along with a structural check from Health and Safety.
Given that Stockport Council can’t replace a roundabout/bridge in less than a fucking year (see below), I don’t hold out much hope for that rebuild getting done any time soon.
As an aside, I haven’t seen Black Widow, but may check it out for Pugh, despite the awful accents. However, I would say that she would make a decent ‘Jane Bond’, based on this, but in reality, they’d have to create a new franchise for her – or just have a Yelena spin-off movie series – since the internet incels won’t allow a 007 gender swap, same as they baulked at Jodie Whittaker playing The Doctor, when the scripts were to blame.
And one thing I’ll put behind a spoiler, even though nothing had yet been revealed by that point…
As for the choice of format to watch this in, at Odeon, I was originally going for IMAX 3D again, but they put the only screening at 10am, which didn’t suit with other films I wanted to see that day. Similarly, in February, they had Captain America: Brave New World only at 10.40am.
Beyond that, for other timings, no other IMAX or 3D versions suited, only regular 2D. Marvel never shoot in 3D, and the last film barely used it anyway. In the end, for Thunderbolts*, I felt the 2.39:1 frame suited the film perfectly, anyway. An early fight scene appeared to slightly move the image up/down to get everything in shot at one point, for a second or two, to compensate for the lack of 1.90:1 height that the IMAX expanded ratio would’ve given, anyway.
Similarly, last year, I saw Alien Romulus in IMAX, and it was opened up to 1.90:1 all the way through, but from that and being shot digitally, it looked like a TV movie. I’d watch it again, but cropped down to 2.39:1, to get the feel of the original, and not have the extraneous stuff top and bottom.
As for the asterisk in the title…
There’s also a mid- and post-credits scene, as described in the video below.
Thunderbolts* is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 126 minutes
Release date: May 1st 2025
Studio: Marvel
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1; 1.90:1 (IMAX version: some scenes) (ARRIRAW (4.6K, 6.5K), Anamorphic Ultra Panavision 70(anamorphic, source format)
Rating: 4/10
Director: Jake Schreier
Producer: Kevin Feige
Screenplay: Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo
Music: Son Lux
Cast:
Yelena Belova: Florence Pugh
Bucky Barnes: Sebastian Stan
Valentina Allegra de Fontaine: Julia Louis-Dreyfus
“Bob” (Robert Reynolds): Lewis Pullman
Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian: David Harbour
John Walker: Wyatt Russell
Ava Starr/Ghost: Hannah John-Kamen
Antonia Dreykov/Tskmaster: Olga Kurylenko
Mel: Geraldine Viswanathan
Congressman Gary: Wendell Pierce
Holt: Chris Bauer
Young Yelena: Violet McGraw
Anya: Alexa Swinton
Houston: Eric Lange
Young Valentina: Chiara Stella
Valentina’s Father: Stefano Carannante
Nico: Gianfranco Terrin
Olivia Walker: Gabrielle Byndloss
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.