'Thunderbolts*' Feels Like the MCU We Used to Love
Let’s skip the usual postmortem of Marvel’s recent slump. We’ve all seen the disappointing projects, the slow bleed from box office royalty to “I'll watch that for free on Disney+.” What matters now is this: Thunderbolts*, Marvel's latest superhero team-up movie, is good. Not “better than expected” good. Not “at least it’s not Quantumania” good. Actually good. Funny, sharp, surprisingly moving in parts.
It’s the best MCU movie since 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3.
What’s immediately refreshing is how much Thunderbolts* doesn’t play like modern Marvel. There’s texture here. Nothing is smoothed over with weightless CG glaze or buried under layers of franchise homework. There’s a human pulse running through this one; a focus on character, consequence, and chemistry. Which is more than you can say for the last MCU flick, Captain America: Brave New World, a movie that felt like it was assembled from leftover plotlines, studio notes, and artless CGI. Thunderbolts* has verve, soul, spectacle, and jokes that actually land.
Florence Pugh anchors the film with her usual effortless confidence. As the reluctant assassin Yelena, she’s sardonic, sharp, and visibly carrying years of damage behind her eyes. She’s cool and magnetic in the way early Marvel stars like Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. used to be.
Surrounding Pugh is a rogue’s gallery of well-cast weirdos: David Harbour’s Red Guardian, still delightfully unhinged and now with a bigger heart; Wyatt Russell’s John Walker, the short-fused has-been with something to prove; Sebastian Stan’s Bucky, resigned but still badass. Even Ghost from Ant Man and the Wasp (Hannah John-Kamen) gets a glow-up.
Then there’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina de Fontaine, roasting everyone in sight as Thunderbolts*' delightfully smug big bad. And keep an eye on MCU newcomers Geraldine Viswanathan and Lewis Pullman, who inject something more thoughtful, and a little surprising, than you’d expect here.
Plot-wise, it’s better to go in cold. The twists and turns are earned and the structure tight. What Thunderbolts* gets right — and what Marvel has been missing lately — is that action only matters if the people doing it feel real. If you care about them.
This is a movie about characters trying to crawl out from under bad decisions, bad mentors, and bad luck. And doing it not because they’re “heroes,” but because they want something better, together. That’s the kind of relatable, human stuff that makes Thunderbolts* feel more like the MCU of old.
If you’ve been waiting for Marvel to remember what made it work in the first place, Thunderbolts* is your shot of hope. It’s messy in the right ways. It’s emotional without being too sappy. It’s fun without feeling disposable.
No, it’s not Guardians of Galaxy or Avengers: Endgame level magic, but it’s not trying to be. It’s carving its own space. And it might just be the comeback no one saw coming.
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