‘Thunderbolts: The New Avengers’ is Available on Digital Today – Review

‘Thunderbolts‘ wastes a stellar cast and promising premise trying to shoehorn them into a second-rate Avengers knockoff.

I intentionally missed ‘Thunderbolts‘ in theaters. Not out of scheduling conflict but because I looked at the trailers, glanced at the runtime, and genuinely didn’t feel it was worth putting pants on to head to the movie house. Turns out, I was right.

There’s a specific kind of disappointment that comes not from ‘Thunderbolts‘ being a bad film being, but from watching it actively squander every piece of potential it had. That’s ‘Thunderbolts‘ in a nutshell: two hours of meh, wasted character dynamics, and a tone that can’t decide if it wants to be gritty espionage, trauma group therapy, or a punchline-heavy MCU episode.

Let’s start with the most egregious misuse of time: Yelena Belova. Florence Pugh has real charisma and proved in ‘Black Widow‘ and ‘Hawkeye‘ that she can balance humor, heart, and action. But here, she spends nearly a third of the film spiraling in emotional distress, dissecting her moral compass, and questioning her place in the world; all while the plot sputters around her. It’s not that emotional depth is unwelcome in superhero films, but Thunderbolts drowns in it. The pacing comes to a screeching halt every time we cut to Yelena staring off into the distance while somber violins swell. Her trauma could’ve been layered into the action or explored through dynamic character interactions. Instead, we get what feels like a Netflix drama subplot shoehorned into a blockbuster.

Winter Soldier (Sabastian Stan) Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and US Agent (Wyatt Russell) in, ‘Thunderbolts‘.

Then there’s U.S. Agent John Walker. Wyatt Russell, brought raw intensity to the character in ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘. Walker should’ve been this team’s ideological wildcard, someone whose rigid sense of duty and frayed sense of justice could clash brilliantly with the others. Instead, he’s sidelined. Reduced to muscle, Walker doesn’t evolve, challenge anyone, or really even matter in the end. A moral reckoning, a rogue mission, something could’ve made him pop. But nope, he gets lost in the ensemble fog.

Sabastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes is still compelling and still criminally underused. There’s a moment where Bucky tries to step into a leadership role, and it sparks briefly…before the script yanks it away. His age, experience, and trauma could’ve made him the philosophical backbone of the group, but the film is too busy dragging us back into Yelena’s panic attacks to let Bucky breathe. He deserved more. So did we.

The Sentry is a standout only in terms of raw spectacle thanks to Lewis Pullman’s performance. He’s introduced with a visual bang and quickly becomes the literal and narrative black hole of the movie. There’s no real exploration of what his immense power means in the grand scope of the movie. He’s a plot device, not a character. They show his instability but never fully commit, think Ang Lee’s ‘Hulk‘. If you’re going to include a god-tier threat, maybe make sure the rest of the film isn’t built on unstable emotional scaffolding.

Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) Sentry (Lewis Pullman) White Widow (Florence Pugh) and US Agent (Wyatt Russell) in, ‘Thunderbolts‘.

The rest of the crew, Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and Red Guardian (David Harbour), drift through the story like fillers. Red Guardian is comic relief, but even that feels hollow, a true waste of Harbour’s talents.

Tonally, the film is all over the place. You can feel the push and pull between what could have been a gritty anti-hero tale and the MCU’s compulsion to toss in one-liners every ten minutes. There are flickers of tension, some scenes hint at moral gray areas, fractured loyalties, and past betrayals, but it is nothing more than a poor-man’s Marvel version of, ‘The Suicide Squad‘.

Ultimately, Thunderbolts cost more to produce than I will ever earn in my lifetime, and yet it feels like a placeholder. A product made to fulfill a slate obligation, not to tell a meaningful story. Marvel has done ensemble storytelling well before, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy‘, ‘Captain America: Civil War‘, ‘Avengers: End Game‘ but this? Calling the ‘Thunderbolts‘ the New Avengers, gives me little hope for the future of the MCU.

‘Thunderbolts‘ is available now on Digital and comes home on 4K, Blu-ray and DVD July 29, 2025.

Bonus Features*

• Deleted Scenes – Check out the scenes that didn’t make the final cut.
  • Door is Unliftable
  • Gary Announcement

• Assembling a Team to Remember – Spend a bit of quality time with the cast and crew of Thunderbolts* as they divulge how the film’s fictional team of superpowered mavericks, misfits and antiheroes was assembled.

• Around the World and Back Again – Discover the eclectic locations and astounding production design that helped make Thunderbolts* a rousing reality, including a visit to the sprawling sets in Kuala Lumpur where we join Florence Pugh performing stunts atop one of planet Earth’s tallest buildings and blowing up buildings on the streets.

• All About Bob, Sentry & The Void – Deep dive into the making of three different characters: Bob, Sentry, and The Void – all performed by Lewis Pullman.

• Gag Reel – Enjoy fun outtakes on set with the cast and crew of Thunderbolts*.

• Director’s Audio Commentary – Watch the film with audio commentary by director Jake Schreier.

*Bonus features may vary by product and retailer