High On Films’s review published on Letterboxd:
It is no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has suffered a decline in quality in the aftermath of “Avengers: Endgame,” the conclusion to the “Infinity Saga” that briefly attained the status of being the highest-grossing film of all time. Although Kevin Feige and the team at Marvel Studios attempted to insert energy into the franchise through the introduction of the “Multiverse,” subsequent installments have included disappointing sequels (“Thor: Love and Thunder”), misguided creative swings (“Eternals”), botched crossover events (“The Marvels”), and many post-credit scenes that have not paid off. This era’s most commercially successful films have included nostalgia-heavy films like “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which coasted on the audience’s goodwill for the established characters.
While saying that “Thunderbolts*” (2025) is a significant step forward for the MCU might seem to be damning with faint praise, it’s irable how self-aware Jake Schreir’s team-up adventure is. Instead of overwhelming the viewer with endless scenes of exposition, “Thunderbolts*” opts to take a more character-centric focus on a group of outcasts, criminals, and self-itted “losers” that are hastily assembled to form a new team. In a world where the Avengers no longer exist, the world is in need of heroes who have the power to inspire. In a clever twist, the protagonists of Thunderbolts* all need to be heroes in order to save themselves from feelings of despair, grief, and depression.
Although it’s impressive that “Thunderbolts*” is not completely reliant on preceding films in order to be comprehensible, it is most directly related to “Black Widow,” which introduced Florence Pugh as the Red Room’s assassin Yelena Belova. While Yelena has picked up assignments for the CIA director, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), she suffers a crisis of confidence as she considers the terrible things she did in her former life. Yelena attempts to break the news that she is quitting to her surrogate father, Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), when she finds herself on a dangerous mission in which she comes to face-to-face with several covert agents; Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen) is a vigilante that can phase through objects, John Walker (Wyatt Russell) was fired from his position as the new Captain America, and the enigmatic “Bob” (Lewis Pullman) has been given powers through an illicit experiment.