🎥 Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers, shall we?

⚠️ Content Warning

I should give y’all a warning ⚠️ — this film does deal with some heavy subjects, and I do mean heavy.

For example, we get a backflash to one of Yelena’s training moments in the Red Room, which involved her luring a girl student into the snowy woods so an assassin could come up and shoot the girl in the head.

Yeah. That sort of dark subject. If you can’t handle that, then understandable.

🫢 Okay But Also—Can We Talk About the “Marvel Is Back” Thing?

Can we please, as a fanbase, stop saying “Marvel is back!”

Seriously, y’all said this for:

• Shang-Chi
• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
• Deadpool and Wolverine
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Daredevil: Born Again
• …and now Thunderbolts

Y’all say “Marvel is dead,” then turn around and say “Marvel is back.” From the sounds of it, seems like it isn’t dead and it is indeed back.

Make up your minds. Which is it?

You can’t say “they’re back” like five times and still say “nah they’re dead.” That’s not how that works.

So from here on out? I’m done hearing that. If any of y’all say once again “Marvel is dead” or “Marvel is back,” I’ll find a way to block y’all.

🧨 Plot Rundown (Slight Spoilers)

I think y’all are gonna be surprised by what I have to say about this film.

So what’s the plot rundown?

Yelena (played by Florence Pugh) is feeling unfulfilled and wants to stop working for Valentina. I mean, understandable—she’s shady.

But Valentina has one last mission for Yelena, which involves her going to one of her secret sites to stop someone from stealing something top secret.

While this happens, Valentina is in a situation. The judge and government want to put her away in prison because there are some rumors about what she does.

Also, Senator Barnes (played by Sebastian Stan) is trying to help the judge get Valentina into prison. Will she get sent to prison? Along with her assistant Mel (who Bucky tries to sway over to their side)?

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Welcome to the Bunker of Plot Convergence

So Yelena gets to the bunker and locates:

• Taskmaster
• Ghost
• Agent Walker

Wait, what are they all doing here?

Well:

• Ghost is here to assassinate Taskmaster
• Walker is here to arrest them
• Yelena is here to prevent the thief from stealing intel

Oh also, spoilers — Taskmaster gets killed off. Ghost shoots her in the head.

That’s right. Taskmaster gets one line of dialogue and one scene, then she dies.

Well, hopefully now the real Taskmaster can come into the MCU.
I guess you could say Taskmaster’s appearance in this film was… mind-blowing.

👨‍⚕️ Who Is Bob??

Anyway, they also find this guy named Bob (played by Lewis Pullman).
This random guy named Bob.

What is he doing here? Don’t know.
Why is he wearing a hospital gown? Don’t know.
He has no memory.

Also—turns out Valentina sent them all out there to die.
She’s about to incinerate them.

So now they have to team up to get out.

Bet y’all are wondering—where’s Red Guardian?

He’s a limo driver.
And he’s driving Valentina around right now.

He overhears her plan to incinerate them. Dunn dunn dunnnn.

🧬 Project Sentry… and Also Bob Again

Valentina finds out someone from Project Sentry survived.

Dunn dunnn dunnnn!

What’s Project Sentry?
Who’s Bob?

Will the gang make it out?

Answer: yes.
They sneak out by disguising themselves as soldiers that came to attack them.

💬 One of My Favorite Clips

Here’s a clip I really loved from the film. It’s titled Pointless Backstories.
👉 https://youtu.be/VNv4ussQ1_k?si=B82hUeWgP7-42BD6

Yeah spoilers, I know.
The end of the clip titles the movie as The New Avengers.

🦸‍♂️ Who Is Sentry? Yeah, It’s Bob.

To answer: who is Sentry?

Turns out it’s Bob.
Bob—this rando guy—got experimented on by Valentina.

And his powers kick in once he gets shot multiple times while the gang is escaping.

He takes flight and crashes.
The gang now has to get away, save Bob, and stop Valentina.

Red Guardian (played by David Harbour) finds them in the middle of the desert.

“Yelena! It’s your dad! Don’t go into the vault! Valentina is gonna burn you alive!”

Yes, the team has gotten together.
Now all we need is Bucky.

Luckily, he finds them and saves them from army trucks…

But then Bucky takes the gang to an empty place to tie them up because they worked with Valentina.

🪖 Will They Team Up?

Will the gang team up?
Will Valentina be stopped?
Will Bob be saved?

All will be revealed in the spoilers.

🎯 Rating Time

Overall: yeah—I highly recommend this film.
The praise for this film was justified.

This truly feels like old MCU.

This film focuses on being a single story and doesn’t focus on glorified cameos (there’s none).

It’s not trying to act like it’s attached to a broader universe—even though it is.

This is what’s been missing, in my opinion.

Also, the comedy was perfectly balanced.

And I love how this film tackles heavy subjects.

⚠️ Spoilers Ahead Y’all Been Warned ⚠️

🧠 Heavy Subjects and Trauma Dump Time

Gonna get this out of the way—the film deals with:

• Depression
• Loneliness
• Trauma

Remember how I mentioned that we get a backflash to Yelena murdering a young girl when she was a kid?
Well, we also see a backflash to Walker being a shitty father to his baby by neglecting him, and being mean to his wife by walking away and saying:

“If you don’t like the way I do things, then you do it yourself.”

Yeahhhh.
I did say this film deals with heavy things.

We find out Walker’s wife left him with their child. Yikes.

If you’re wondering why we get backflashes—well, when they touch Bob, they get sucked into their trauma backflash.

Unfortunately we don’t see a trauma backflash for:

• Bucky
• Red Guardian
• Ghost

But we do get one for Valentina.

Her backflash amounts to:
Her father owed money to some mob boss, and he got killed in front of her in their home.

🤨 One Issue I Had

Another issue I had with the film is right in the beginning—in the first 20 minutes.

Ghost and Yelena are insulting John Walker, making fun of him like he’s the dollar store version of Captain America.

He says: “I was actually the official Captain America, you know.”

Ghost replies: “Yeah, until you murdered an innocent person.”

Yeah sorry, film—
I watched Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
That was not an innocent man he killed.
That was a terrorist.

🙅‍♂️ Unpopular Opinion Time

Unpopular opinion:
I prefer Yelena over Natasha.

The issue is: Natasha was never well-written in the character development department.

Her character boils down to:

• Very skilled assassin
• Has some regrets
• Is friends with the Avengers and Clint
• She’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent

Anything else? Nope.

Meanwhile, Yelena has been in:

• 2 films
• 2-ish episodes

And she’s had by far the best character development, in my opinion, out of both of them.
She is definitely more interesting, is what I’ll say.

🧪 Project Sentry Heats Up

So the gang finally gets Bucky to listen to them once Mel calls him up and tells him about Project Sentry and Bob, who the gang already told him about but he wasn’t taking them seriously.

Bucky: Bob?
Gang: Yes Bob!

Lol I loved that reaction after he hung up.

So now they have to go stop Bob.

They go to Avengers Tower, which has now been bought out.
How dare she.

And she converts Bob into this character named Sentry, who’s essentially a Superman ripoff.

He can fly, he’s super strong.
Only difference is he wears a gold suit, has blonde hair, and has this power called The Void—where he absorbs everyone and everything into a void.

Heck, he’s so strong he beats up the team and bends Walker’s shield into a taco shape.

😵 The Team Is Not Okay

I love that this film even points out how unprepared they are against Bob.

He’s essentially a god, while this group’s only talents are shooting and punching things.

Heck, even Yelena says:

“So what do we do? Punch and shoot things? We make a terrible team.”

---

😐 Why Is the Team Called Thunderbolts?

On a side note, if anyone thought the reason the team is called the Thunderbolts is because they work for Thaddeus Ross—well, sorry to disappoint you.

That’s not the case.

The reason is because Yelena’s old soccer team was called the Thunderbolts.

So she just calls the team that.

Uh huh. Sure.

🌪️ Void, Bob, and the Chicken Suit

So anyway, since Sentry is so strong, how does Valentina escape?

Well, her assistant uses a taser on Sentry to knock him out.

When he wakes up, he fully becomes Void and turns into a full shadow.

Outside the building, the team separates because Yelena walks off saying: “We’re not a team.”

Alexei (aka Red Guardian) goes and talks to Yelena.

She talks about how they’ve not talked to each other in four years, and she’s been alone this whole time—just tossing herself into her job, skimming on her phone, drinking herself to death.

She lost her sister and feels unfulfilled and empty.

Red Guardian gives her a pep talk.
Good. Luckily in time—because Sentry is causing stuff to fall, so they go save some civilians.

Unfortunately, Valentina can’t warp people’s perspective and make them think the Thunderbolts are the bad guys like she was planning to do.

Womp womp.

😱 Yelena Walks into the Void

Unfortunately, Void starts to absorb people—along with a young girl—into his void.
He engulfs the entire city in it.

The Thunderbolts go hide in a building with civilians, but Yelena walks out and goes into the void willingly because she plans to go save Bob.

Is that even possible?

Well… she does go inside her traumatic backflashes and finds her way to Bob, who’s hidden in an attic.

She talks to him and convinces him to leave with her.

At first, he doesn’t want to—because this is his safe spot.

Well that’s just sad.

Just then, things start flying around and attacking them, then the Thunderbolts come in and help them out.

🐔 Bob’s Traumatic Past: Meth & Mascots

Yeah—they also had the same thought to come save them.

So now they go through some of Bob’s traumatic past, and they get pummeled by Bob wearing a chicken suit while spinning a sign around.

I laughed out loud at this scene.

Especially Bob’s reaction when Red Guardian says:

“I swear, if that chicken attacks me one more time…”

Bob’s response?

“I was high on meth!

LOLOL.
Such a real reaction.

🤗 The Hug Heard Around the MCU

So anyway—how do they stop Sentry?

Well, they locate The Void as a separate entity in a room, and Bob heads over to beat him up.

But he’s falling into the Void’s trap.
The Void wants to consume Bob—he wants Bob to truly believe no one loves him and he’s all alone.

But guess what?

He has the power of friends.

His friends come over one by one—because they’re being held with metal pieces—and all five give him one big hug.

That’s right.
The way they stop the villain is by giving a therapy hug.

Awwww.

🔚 Wrapping It Up

Now that all is settled and everyone gets returned back from the Void, the team goes straight after Valentina because they see her and want to beat her up.

She turns a corner and says:

“I know you’re angry, but—”

They follow her through a crashed vehicle, and on the other side is a crowd of news reporters.

Valentina announces the Thunderbolts as the New Avengers.

Yeah. This group is the New Avengers.

Well, about time—since next year is the Avengers: Doomsday film.

Yelena whispers in Valentina’s ear:

“We own you now.”

Okay good—at least now she’s gonna be emotionally punished.

Although I wish she got arrested and punished for her crimes.
Not sure I’m happy with her outcome here.

🎬 Post-Credit Scenes

The end—except there are 2 end-credit scenes.

One of which isn’t even worth talking about.

So let’s talk about the second post-credit scene.

📰 The Credits Themselves

First of all, the end credits had me laughing.

They had news clipping articles of people’s reactions which ranged from:

“Who are they?”
“Not my Avengers.”

And they show an image of Agent Walker using his bent shield as a horse.
Oh hahaha.

⏩ 14 Months Later

So—cut to the end credits scene.
14 months have passed.

They now live in Avengers Tower, which now has tech and all that.

The gang has new attire:

• Bucky’s outfit is based off a comic where he has a black suit with a red star logo on his right arm sleeve.
  I ain’t a fan of this outfit btw.
  Especially his bland dark grey arm.
  Can they please give us back his silver arm?

Also—for some reason 14 months later, and John Walker’s shield is still bent.

You would think he’d get that fixed!

📚 Bob and the Void

Also—Bob’s there in the corner reading books.

And yes—Sentry is tucked away deep in him.

He isn’t helpful to them without his powers, and he can’t have his powers without Sentry, so… there’s that.

So better keep that side of him tucked away.

🧥 Red Guardian = Human NASCAR

Also—Red Guardian is wearing a red jumpsuit covered in ads.
He’s a walking ad.

⚖️ Sam Wilson Is Suing Them??

We find out Sam Wilson is suing them for using the Avengers name.

And now Bucky and Sam are on bad terms with each other.

Yeah—I have a hard time believing that a dispute over a title is causing friction between two people who are best pals with each other.

Also—wait.
Sam has enough money to sue them??

Last I remember, back in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, we see him living in a dock area helping repair a broken boat with his sister.

If he can’t afford to pay people to rebuild a boat, where’s he getting the money to sue them?

🅩 The New Avenger-Z

Alexei says he has a plan around the title infringement.

He shows a logo on his chest which says:
“The New Avenger-Z.”

Get it?
With a Z.

Ha ha ha.

🛰️ And Then… the Fantastic Four?

Just then, they get a notification on their giant computer screen.

They go up to it and the camera fixates on a rocket coming out of orbit.

They zoom in, and… the number 4 is on it.

DUNNN DUNNN DUNNN!

Yes, it’s the Fantastic Four.

I guess this spoils what’s gonna happen—they’re gonna be coming to this main universe.

---

🤔 Final Thoughts

Except we already knew that because they’re gonna be in next year’s Avengers: Doomsday.

And after this film, I’m still not really excited about Doomsday.

But this film did get me super excited about the Fantastic Four.

I’m super stoked for that.

I think it has to do with the fact that I love the Fantastic Four.

😤 Still Don’t Buy Pedro…

I still don’t buy Pedro Pascal as Reed.

And unpopular opinion—
I still prefer the 2005 Fantastic Four.

That film had some of the best casting in my opinion (minus Jessica Alba).

But hey—I’m gonna give this new Fantastic Four a chance.

👋 See Y’all Then

Catch y’all then at the end of July for my review on Fantastic Four, which realistically won’t be out on my blog until early August.
Until then, I hope y’all enjoyed this review.