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Is it possible to distill an entire era of audience apathy toward superhero films into one single movie? Apparently, yes. Enter Thunderbolts, the 36th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – a movie that inadvertently becomes a case study in why audiences are increasingly checking out of the genre.
When Thunderbolts hit theaters, it didn’t arrive with a thunderclap, but more of a shrug. The story: a ragtag team of morally ambiguous characters with troubled pasts must reluctantly work together to stop a vaguely menacing threat. Sound familiar? That’s because it is. We've been here before — not just once, but dozens of times — and this film doesn't even try to mask its reliance on Marvel’s most well-worn narrative blueprint.
At the center is Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), introduced with a somber monologue on loneliness and disaffection — a tone that momentarily suggests something deeper. But what starts with potential quickly nose-dives into tedium. She dispatches enemies with the same deadpan sarcasm that’s become the house style of Marvel post-Guardians of the Galaxy, and it never really lets up. Soon, she’s joined by fellow franchise veterans: John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). It’s a team that feels more like a contractual obligation than a creative spark.
Their mission? To stop CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) from recruiting a powerful test subject presumed dead. That subject is Bob Reynolds, a soft-spoken man harboring a volatile secret. As it turns out, Reynolds is both Sentry — a golden-boy Superman archetype — and his own worst enemy, the Void, a shadowy force that feeds off trauma and despair. The dichotomy between Sentry and Void introduces a genuinely compelling idea: what happens when someone with immense power suffers from a fractured mind? Should godlike power ever be entrusted to someone emotionally unstable?
It’s a question worth exploring. And yet, Thunderbolts fumbles it.
The film wants to say something about mental illness, depression, and identity. But instead of treating those subjects with any nuance, it reduces them to plot devices. Deep emotional wounds are patched up with an empathetic hug or a poignant stare — symbolic gestures that feel unearned. Worse, every heavy moment is immediately undercut by a quip, a smirk, or a joke. It’s a tonal whiplash that undermines the gravity of the subject matter, and in doing so, it alienates the very people the film is trying to resonate with.
The characters suffer too. Despite being set up as the movie’s emotional core, Yelena doesn’t have the dramatic heft to anchor the story. Bucky, one of the few legacy characters with real depth and emotional baggage, is pushed to the background. Others feel barely sketched, their personalities defined more by previous Disney+ series than by anything that happens here. The result? A bloated team movie where no one truly stands out — with one exception.
Lewis Pullman’s portrayal of Bob/Sentry/Void is the film’s rare bright spot. His performance captures the tragic duality of someone simultaneously trying to save the world and destroy it. It’s an introspective character buried in a franchise that doesn’t have the patience or courage to let that story breathe. And that’s the tragedy of Thunderbolts: there was a seed of something good here. But it’s suffocated under the weight of Marvel’s overfamiliar formula.
Even die-hard Marvel fans are beginning to feel the fatigue. These films once promised interconnected storytelling on a scale never seen before. Now, that same interconnectedness has turned into a chore. Watching Thunderbolts often feels like doing homework: you need to remember who these people are, what show they were in, which side plot mattered, and how it all connects to the next thing. It’s exhausting.
Kevin Feige himself recently acknowledged that Marvel has lost some of its luster. And while Thunderbolts isn’t a disaster on the level of Captain America: Brave New World (which, by some early accounts, is testing poorly), it embodies the more insidious kind of mediocrity — the kind that doesn’t inspire anger or excitement, just apathy.
Film critic Armond White called Thunderbolts a film for “Zoomers who were never taught about art, literature, philosophy, or cinema.” While that may be overly harsh and tinged with generational disdain, there’s a point buried in the provocation: Thunderbolts doesn't challenge its audience. It peddles emotional shorthand, surface-level angst, and self-referential quips in place of actual character growth or philosophical inquiry. It’s not enough anymore.
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