Thunderbolts* Review: Mentally Ill Avengers

Sometimes I wonder if there even is a reason to write a review for a movie like Thunderbolts*. My words will never be featured in a trailer or a promo. Even as I write this, my brain keeps screaming at me not to bother. But I never thought I’d see a movie in the MCU that made me cry because it felt so cathartic to feel seen in something so larger than life. The feeling I think so often about: the overwhelming urge to give up, of being broken, and struggling with my mental health being a main theme in a Marvel movie, sounds like a farce. I waited for a quip about depression, but the shoe never dropped. I watched as broken losers came together against all odds for each other, as tears streamed down my face. That is why I’m writing this review. It’s because Thunderbolts* is what superhero movies can and should be. It’s something you walk away from with a bit of hope.

After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap, an unconventional team of antiheroes must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts.

When you have a talent like Florence Pugh on screen for most of a film, there is no doubt it will be a film you will remember. But her performance this go around as Yelena feels so much different from the previous Black Widow and Hawkeye appearances. We meet her at the end of her rope, but not for any other reason than the repetition of the mundane, and so much stuffed-down trauma ready to explode. There is a scene early in the film where she questions the point of going on. Her father, played by David Harbour, starts talking about how she was a happy child, and the light inside her has dimmed. But everything he says touches on something that guides the film, she has so much to give, but no direction to go with it. 

Through a series of unfortunate events, we learn Yelena is someone who, even from a young age, wants to be someone who never wants others to feel like a failure. There is a touching story about her being a goalie for that reason. But you see it in every interaction, choice, and glance she makes. Florence Pugh can speak pages of dialogue with just the emotional power of her eyes in the film, which is a testament to her as an actress. Yelena and Pugh’s performance guides everything about the Thunderbolts*. But that isn’t to say that the writing by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo for every character doesn’t give them all a whole emotional journey, because, for a team film, it absolutely does. 

I may be the only person who went into this movie rooting for U.S. Agent to get his day in the sun. Wyatt Russell as John Walker was the best part of The Falcon and Winter Soldier. He was a man promised the world but given a live hand grenade instead. His intentions were in the right place, but he handled them wrong. All he wanted was to make everyone proud of him and to do right by his country, which he felt deep down that he had wronged with his actions. In the end, though, he only ended up broken. We pick up on that story of a broken, depressed man in Thunderbolts*.

With a brief scene giving us a look into his life, Russell and director Jake Schreier give us a portrait of someone who, deep down, is truly broken. He is at a point where he cannot break away from his failures to be a person any longer, a father so lost in his own failure that he cannot even see his child crying inches from his face. It’s utterly heartbreaking, but you can see it in everything he does in the movie. You can see a man trying to make up for what he has done or the failures he believes he has made. Even with how charming and funny he can be, you can see past the veneer to the broken shield hidden beneath. Every one of these heroes is broken… and then there’s Bob.

So what about Bob? Bob/The Sentry/Void is a character I have loved from the comics for a long time because he is someone I understood. There was this gnawing darkness inside him that wanted to devour him whole, that he had no real control over. It made him constantly doubt everyone around him and himself. I am not precious about adaptations of characters because adaptations should use the art form to evolve, change, or interpret things to tell stories in different ways. Lewis Pullman’s performance as Bob is better than any comic with the Sentry in it because none of those have made me sob.

Pullman’s performance of a man who is afraid of himself in Thunderbolts* is so vulnerable that I could not help but think about my personal struggles with it all. I believe that is what good art does. It makes you reflect upon the struggles you have. I try to be as vulnerable as possible in my writing; I have no idea what the readers are going through, and if they are alone. I recently started a second antidepressant. Do you know how crazy that makes you feel that you need not one but two, count ’em two pills to make your brain stop shouting for you to die? So, just seeing someone in a big Hollywood movie dealing with mental health at such a large scale and struggling with the idea that nothing matters at all, it hit me as hard as Sentry was hitting people in the big battle. Everything about Pullman’s performance of a person struggling with very real mental health problems and trying to find themselves made this clear the other MCU movies, to become my instant favorite because it hit me at home.

Thunderbolts* was the first MCU movie since Avengers: Endgame that I saw on opening night. I wanted to sit with a full house of people to experience what was heralded as the big comeback story. Was I expecting the comeback story to be one about a group of broken losers dealing with their own mental health, insecurities, and issues together? Absolutely not. Did I think it would be handled tactfully and with as much weight as it was, based on how other Marvel movies handled big topics? Even more so, no. But I walked out of the theatre with that same buzz in my heart when I saw The Avengers. But this time, those losers were just as broken as I was. The Thunderbolts* easily takes the cake for my favorite Marvel film, serves it with a shot of vodka and a hug that reminds you that finding and doing the thing that gives you purpose is worth it, no matter what.