THUNDERBOLTS*

THUNDERBOLTS* is a Marvel superhero movie about a group of superheroes being manipulated by the female CIA director, who come together to defeat her when she sets them against one another, but the director has an evil plan to create a new invulnerable superbeing that will totally do her bidding. THUNDERBOLTS* has many funny and touching bits in addition to lots of action, plus some strong redemptive, moral elements about light overcoming darkness, but some scenes don’t work as well as they should, and the ending isn’t fully explained, so it’s a bit confusing, despite having some emotional uplifting moments, and the dialogue has too many strong gratuitous obscenities and profanities.

The movie begins with the CIA Director, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, coming under fire from members of Congress, who think she’s used her power to aggrandize herself. Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s old war buddy and newly elected Congressman, agrees with the intelligence committee. He tries and fails to convince Valentina’s female assistant to flip on Valentina.

Meanwhile, Yelena Belova, the adopted sister of the Black Widow, who sacrificed her life in AVENGERS: ENDGAME, has become disillusioned working for Valentina on black ops. She’s also depressed about her sister’s death and feels her life has no purpose. Like her adopted sister, Yelena was trained from a young age to be a Russian assassin but now considers the United States to be her adopted home. Yelena’s also estranged from her father, Alexei, a Cold War super soldier known as the Red Guardian, because he hasn’t contacted her since her sister’s death.

Valentina orders Yelena to infiltrate Valentina’s former company’s headquarters to destroy some incriminating evidence there. Upon being appointed CIA Director, Valentina had to put her company into a blind trust.

However, when Yelena infiltrates the facility, she learns Valentina has sent four other superhero agents there, including an assassin hoping they will kill each another. After killing the assassin, Yelena and the others figure out they’re being betrayed. So, they decide to join forces. During the fight, they’re surprised to find a young man in his pajamas, who calls himself Bob. Claiming to be suffering from amnesia, Bob tells the others they can leave him there if they wish. However, Yelena and Bob seem to share an empathic if not telepathic connection. So, she insists taking Bob with them in their escape.

They face a problem, however. Valentina has trapped them in the room they occupy and has set to to explode in two minutes. She’s also ordered a full military platoon to see that Yelena and the others are killed. When they escape the explosion, and Valentina learns that Bob is with them, she orders her troops not to shoot to kill but to capture all of them, especially Bob.

Can Yelena, Bob and the others escape from being captured? Why is Valentina so interested in this Bob character?

THUNDERBOLTS* has many funny bits and lots of action. The beginning is a little slow, but it sets up the touching character arc between Yelena and her estranged father. David Harbour is hilarious as the father. The banter between him and Florence Pugh as the daughter is pretty funny too. When it comes time for their reconciliation, it makes for a strong heartfelt moment between them.

When the third act, set in New York City, reveals the true background of Bob and his connection to Valentina, it makes for a great twist. It also sets up a strong confrontation full of jeopardy. However, the twist leads to some other twists, and an ending that begins to be confusing. As a result, viewers were divided over how successful the ending really is. On of the issues is that the ending introduces a totally new, mysterious character, who threatens the lives of everyone, including many innocent bystanders in New York. The character is a famous character from Marvel Comics who’s connected to Bob. Unless you know about the character, you’ll be partially if not totally lost.

That said, the ending did have several powerful emotional, redemptive moments. Some of the most powerful of those moments seemed to echo what the GOSPEL OF JOHN says about Jesus in John 1:4 and 5, “In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” In the movie, Yelena risks her life to help Bob, and it leads literally to a fight with evil darkness. She and her compatriots literally and metaphorically bring light to help Bob overcome the darkness. Their defeat of the darkness, acting together with Bob, actually brings life, and solves the plot problem. However, not everything is explained in this resolution to the movie’s plot problem. This leaves viewers hanging, including those viewers who may have enjoyed or been moved by parts of the ending. It should also be noted that, despite the movie’s redemptive elements, the lack of any specific reference to Jesus in the movie could make the movie’s biblical allusions about light overcoming darkness seem like conjuring up some false Platonic metaphysical notions.

THUNDERBOLTS* also has some intense action violence. Worse, it has strong gratuitous obscenities and profanities. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.

Part of the plot in THUNDERBOLTS* involves two obscure Marvel characters, Sentry and The Void. The movie invents a new background for Sentry, but it leaves The Void mysterious and ambiguous. This left some viewers scratching their heads.