Thunderbolts* Review: Marvel Gambles with Dark Humor and Raw Heroes in Post-Endgame Shake-Up

A New Kind of Marvel: Antiheroes in the Spotlight

If you thought Marvel was done rolling the dice after Endgame, Thunderbolts* proves they’re willing to play rougher. Instead of godlike icons or dimension-hopping wizards, this movie throws the spotlight on a team of damaged, morally gray outsiders. Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Red Guardian (David Harbour) immediately stand out, bringing back their crowd-pleasing banter from Black Widow. You get the sense this film is less about capes and lasers, and more about hearts trying to beat in spite of battered pasts.

Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) pulls the strings here, gathering Yelena, Red Guardian, Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) for missions that sit solidly in a moral gray zone. Nobody’s saving the world for glory. They’re in it for a shot at redemption, survival, or just a break from running from their own messes.

Real Fights, Real Problems—and a Hit-or-Miss Gamble

Forget the sky lasers and endless CGI. Thunderbolts* plants its flag with hard-hitting, practical fight scenes—like a chaotic four-way brawl that sticks with you. There’s real effort to show bodies in motion, not pixels swirling around. That change of pace goes a long way, especially when you see injuries that actually matter and punches that feel like they hurt.

There’s also a heavy emphasis on mental health and trauma. Yelena’s struggles get space to breathe, peeling back the superhero façade and letting her show some actual vulnerability. It’s a risk for Marvel—a studio that usually masks pain with cool gadgets or wisecracks. But here, there’s raw, awkward humanity, and it lands more often than not.

The cast does a lot of heavy lifting. Florence Pugh’s Yelena and Harbour’s Red Guardian crack and comfort each other in ways that never feel forced. Stan’s Bucky Barnes, however, is left searching for purpose—a point critics seem to agree on. His brooding feels aimless, making his arc the weakest link in the team.

The movie isn’t without stumbles. The first act drags, and the villain doesn’t have the same depth you see in the leads. That doesn’t ruin things, but it does mean some plot threads feel left in the lurch. What sticks is the emotional current that runs through this team—broken people trying to do something sort of right, even if the world only sees their worst sides.

Through all the rough edges, Thunderbolts stands out as a bolder step for the MCU—one that ditches the safety net and lets its heroes hurt, mess up, and maybe, just maybe, start healing. It’s not perfect, but you can’t say it plays it safe.