Thunderbolts: The New Avengers (DVD film review).
From the description, the Thunderbolts are Marvel’s equivalent of DC Comics’ Suicide Squad with a touch of ‘The Boys’. We get introduced to them via Yelena Belova (actress Florence Pugh) travelling around the world, disposing of all things OX Project for a client. During her downtime, she visits her father, the Red Guardian (actor David Harbour), who is dedicated to serving her boss. Later in the story, I don’t think the incident happened recently, but a memory stirred up.
The client in question is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who is the head of the CIA and is likely to be impeached; however, she argues that the government needs its own team of super-beings now that the more independent Avengers are gone.
Yelena desires a more rewarding and public role after her next mission, which turns into a chaotic free-for-all among four superhumans who fight each other until they realise that, as part of the clean-up operation, they are also expendable and must figure out how to escape a fiery furnace. Oh, one of them gets killed. I’m not entirely sure who, but she looked a bit like Madame Masque. There’s also the matter of Bob (actor Lewis Pullman), who was added to the mix, and even he doesn’t know why. With the elevator damaged, they have to continue to work together to break out.
The reason why I’m being so vague about who this non-team is is because they are barely named and only demonstrate their powers. I recognised John Walker’s costume, but the others I don’t know. You learn as you go along. Bob is also called Sentry when he is powered up. Oh, the Winter Soldier, aka Bucky Barnes (actor Sebastian Stan), is also added to the mix as the team grows. de Fontaine wants Sentry to kill them all, but he stops short of that, and then things get worse. She also starts to change her mind when out on the streets, these Thunderbolts save lives from falling debris.
I think towards the end of the film I was getting a tad punch-drunk with all the fights going on. Even the stops for some conversations didn’t help much either. In many respects, this is more a problem with the plot structure or how the creators think they are giving more to the readers by having endless fights. It supposedly works in the comic books, and then they forget this is a faster medium, and a real fight can be over in minutes that can’t be represented on the printed page. All of this is mixed in with giving the cast enough screen time to justify their fees.
Considering all the carnage that was going on in New York, you do have to wonder where any of the other surviving superheroes were and why they weren’t helping out. This can also apply to any of the superhero realities, but just toning it down to the main focus was often the way to see things and not question that aspect.
Something occurred to me with the length of the credits. Going CGI was supposed to cut the number of people working on a film, and yet it just seems to be forever increasing. Yes, there is a time factor involved in scheduling and such, but that does stop the number of people involved.
At least the film is watchable, which is the main thing, and there are two items in the credits that you need to stay watching for.
GF Willmetts
January 2026
(pub: Marvel Studios, 2025. 1 DVD, 121-minute film and no extras. Price: varies. ASIN: BUA4033701
