Thunderbolts* (Spoilers)

Thunderbolts*

Released 2025, USA

Director: Jake Schreier

Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and others

Synopsis for busy people (Spoilers)

Yelena, Black Widow's sister, is fed up with cleanup-style jobs and decides to quit. At the location of her final mission, she runs into others doing similar work, and the Thunderbolts are formed. Their employer, Val, was trying to incinerate the storage facility along with the assassins, including Yelena and the others, to cover up evidence of illegal human experimentation. However, one experiment was a success, and a young man named Bob was found in the facility. Bob became Sentry, who is stronger than all the Avengers combined. Furthermore, he became a man in all-black, possessing a cheat ability to turn people into shadows and trap them in a world of trauma just by holding his hand over them. Yelena jumps into his world and saves Bob with the mental argument that "you are not alone," and the man in all-black disappears. In the end, the mercenary Val says, "Uh... they are the New Avengers!" Wait, what...?

Impressions for busy people

・Yelena is too good
・Bucky is too cool
・Sentry is too strong

Synopsis

Full spoiler synopsis here↓

Impressions

▫︎The birth of the best character in Marvel history, Yelena Belova

Yelena is Natasha's sister who first appeared in "Black Widow." Though they aren't blood-related, they spent time as a fake family as part of a mission back in the day. But 6-year-old Yelena lived thinking they were her real family, Alexei was her father, and so on. She is from the Red Room, the same Soviet spy training facility as Natasha. After the brainwashing was broken in "Black Widow" and she and Natasha destroyed the Red Room, she was hired by Valentina—the lady with the bangs and highlights—and appeared as an antagonist targeting Clint in "Hawkeye."

Man, Yelena in this movie is good. Really good.

Since Yelena was so good in this movie, I rewatched her in "Black Widow," and yeah, she was already good. Even in her first appearance. Te ka, first of all,
her look is great.Just talking about her look, the long hair slicked-back style from her Red Room days is nice, but the blonde center-part in "Thunderbolts*" is aclassic handsome guy from Japanese animekind of hairstyle, and it's absolutely the best. It's nice that her dark roots are growing out a bit, and the blonde is a whiter blonde than in the previous film. It's good. Her eye makeup? The blue thing she puts under her eyes is stylish and cute. Also, her voice. She really has such a distinctive voice, doesn't she? Scarlett Johansson also has a pretty husky and distinctive voice, but Yelena has an even better voice that surpasses it. Or rather, I might even like her voice more than her look. It's just... really good.

Regarding her inner self, Yelena has basically lived her whole life as an assassin, except for the three years she spent with Natasha and the others when she was a child, soshe's kind of still a child.Inside. Things likemocking the superhero landingandgetting excited about clothes with lots of pocketsare part of it, but she doesn't have the same "mental strength" as Natasha. That's why she says she wants a job where she's in front of people, andshe cries saying she's lonely because Natasha is dead.

"Thunderbolts*" feels like a superhero movie mixed with a healing-for-the-soul movie where Yelena, tired of jobs she can't be proud of, confronts the darkness of Bob, who is trying to become stronger despite carrying similar trauma, and realizes that she, too, can protect something. It is wonderful that it is both
a movie where Bob overcomes the darkness within himself and a movie where Yelena (and her companions) overcome their pasts. The good thing about Marvel movies is that they aren't just battle films.

By the way, I first learned about Florence Pugh, who plays Yelena, in "Black Widow," but she is none other than the person crying on the poster for "Midsommar." She has also appeared in "Oppenheimer" and "Dune: Part Two." It seems she was even nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Saoirse Ronan's "Little Women." Oh, is that so? I should watch it.

If you search for "Florence Pugh" on YouTube, many cheerful videos of her come up. This person is seriously genuinely sunny.

▫︎ Bucky!

When the production of "Thunderbolts*" was announced, I assumed he would be the protagonist, but Bucky ended up in more of a leader/coordinator position. In the first half, he was just a congressman doing some things behind the scenes, and I thought the only highlight was the scene where he washes his prosthetic arm in the dishwasher, but he was actually super incredibly cool, wasn't he, Bucky.

He should have become the White Wolf after Hydra's brainwashing was undone, but maybe it hasn't caught on yet because everyone was calling him the Winter Soldier. Well, Winter Soldier does sound cooler. His hairstyle went back from the short hair in "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" to his original long hair. Personally, I prefer this look. To be more specific, I like it long and wet like in "Endgame." Sebastian Stan looks like he has a shaved head in promotional materials and such, but why? Is it for a role in another movie or something?

▫︎ The worst and best dad, Alexei

Alexei only had good points like humming "American Pie," the song his family loved, in "Black Widow" (that's not true), but he was a really great dad in this movie.

After being soundly defeated by Sentry and the team scattered, the scene where he comforts Yelena, who is tearing up due to various things piling up, by saying, "You volunteered to be the goalkeeper for the soccer team (named Thunderbolts) because you wanted to be someone people could rely on," was good enough that I barely didn't cry.

Can even we become heroes!? (｀・ω・´) -> Got beaten up by Sentry, so I guess we couldn't after all (´・ω・｀) -> Void goes on a rampage and the city is in trouble -> Thunderbolts instinctively protect the citizens -> Cheers from the citizens -> Maybe we can be heroes (do good things) after all...! (｀・ω・´) The flow was the best. It was also a good scene showing his dad aptitude that it was Alexei who saved the girl who was about to be hit by rubble. Yelena was embarrassed, but having a dad like that would be the best, wouldn't it.
I'm only saying the best.

▫︎ Taskmaster...?

In the pre-release information, Taskmaster, a.k.a. Dreykov's daughter, Antonia (Olga Kurylenko), was normally cast. Well, she did appear, but her tragic fate was to be killed by Ghost 5 minutes after appearing. According to the director, "
No one is safe in this world. Sometimes bad people look like good people, but it was necessary to depict that they have lived cold and ruthless lives," but what is that like when Twice died thing. Wait, is that for real?
Wasn't her salary high?
I don't know, though. Antonia is one of the most pitiful characters in the movie, isn't she. Every time I see
the inorganic skull mask of Taskmaster that is at least on the poster

, I feel sad.

▫︎ Post-credits scene

So, the Thunderbolts have become the New Avengers, but it seems Sam, the new Cap, still hasn't accepted them.Why not?
While Alexei is saying something stupid about how they should just change the 'S' in 'Avengers' to a 'Z' and make it 'Avengerz', there's a scene where the Fantastic Four's spaceship flies toward Earth. I saw a theory somewhere that since the design is different from the spaceship appearing in the teaser for the upcoming movie 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps,' it might be the Fantastic Four from a different timeline—
the 2005 version of the Fantastic Four—but if that's true,
that would be so epic!!! I mean, the Human Torch is Chris Evans. Wait, oh, but the Chris version of Johnny
was shredded to pieces and killed by Cassandra Nova
, right? So then, the 2015 version of the Fantastic Four? That would still be totally epic, right?!?