Thunderbolts review: Sentry shines, but it needed 30 more minutes

Marvel's Thunderbolts made me think that maybe, just maybe, Marvel might have gotten back on track. I loved Sentry, and my biggest problem is that I don't get to spend more time with this team. That's a good sign. Major spoilers follow, including the ending and the post-credit scene.

The film stars Florence Pugh as Yelena, alongside David Harbour as Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Val and Lewis Pullman as Bob, the man who becomes Sentry.

Taskmaster dies almost immediately in Thunderbolts, and I think something happened behind the scenes

Why was nobody talking about Taskmaster? Once you see the movie, you understand. Moments after Taskmaster enters the bunker, Ghost shoots her point blank in the head. Kevin Feige even had them show blood oozing from the wound, so you know she's dead. With the multiverse, nobody is truly dead, but it sent a pretty strong message.

Look at the evidence. Olga Kurylenko was only allowed to attend the Los Angeles premiere and hasn't done any other press, even though the film has had a lot of it. Taskmaster was also digitally removed from scenes she had appeared in in the first few trailers. Some people suggested she was digitally added to those trailers as a misdirect. That's a valid theory, but why give up the ruse right before release? Why freeze Kurylenko out of the press tour?

It's also a weird time to kill her. If you're going to kill a major character, you do it in the third act or let Sentry do it. I don't know what's happening behind the scenes, but I think something must be. Still, for one flash her mask retracted, revealing her crazy eyes and scarred face, and she told Yelena, "I'm not here for you." I connected with her, and I felt a lot worse about her death than Yelena did. I guess Natasha had the deeper connection to Taskmaster, but maybe Yelena's reaction says more about herself. Maybe she feels her own days are numbered because of all the red in the Black Widows' ledger.

I loved Sentry in Thunderbolts, and he scared me

I loved Sentry. My ranking went Sentry, then the Void, then Bob. I was impressed for two reasons: how comics accurate he looked, and that he was not just incredibly powerful but believably so. Kudos to the VFX team. If all they could afford was one Sentry scene, I'll take it.

Sometimes an overpowered character makes you roll your eyes. With Sentry, I was scared he was going to kill someone. From the moment the movie started, I worried they'd kill Red Guardian to fridge him for Yelena. When Sentry sent him flying out the window at the top of Avengers Tower, I gasped out loud. Luckily, Sentry pulled him back in, because these were the friends he had just made in the bunker. Bob mastering these powers in less than 48 hours didn't bother me. He's got a natural gift. Let him cook.

Then there's the bomb. Like Amanda Waller, Val installed one in Sentry's head with a little button. Sentry knocks it out of her hand, but her assistant Mel picks it up and presses it. His head doesn't explode, but you see the blood in his eyes. I think they held back because he had to come back as the Void. It's one glorious scene, but I wish they could have afforded one more sequence. In the final post-credit scene, Bob has benched himself, afraid being Sentry will only lead to the Void. Come on, dude. You're too cool to bench.

Val's company, Homelander and an evil Superman

Val's company was scary too. Its name takes the S from Oscorp and changes it to an X. Maybe it'll have something to do with the X-Men. I thought Norman Osborn would work here, but maybe it's Mr. Sinister, or maybe they formed the company together. I don't know. It's crazy to change just one letter. And they made a regular human this powerful without even needing an Infinity Stone. Maybe they had one.

The market research charts on how Sentry should look reminded me of Homelander. In the last season of The Boys, the lab that created Homelander had charts on his hair and costume, and the same charts are here. That's a yoink. Kevin Feige watches The Boys. Sentry also mimics Homelander by deciding he shouldn't listen to anybody when he's basically a god.

Really, Sentry is Superman. Heat vision was already used in Eternals, so they swapped in telekinesis, which I think is how he flies. Telekinesis is the power I always say I'd want, and I love an evil Superman. He was so powerful, so evil, so Homelander, that he turned on Val.

The Void isn't as cool as Sentry, and I'm frustrated we won't get a Thunderbolts 2

The Void isn't as cool as Sentry, but he's still cool. His only interest seems to be sucking people into his therapy escape room complex, and the only way out is through the power of friendship. In the comics, the Void's tendrils show you traumatic experiences from your past, present and future. The movie skips the future. That's very Dickens, the ghost of Christmas future, and I almost wish they'd used it. The shadows were a cool effect, but knowing everyone will come right back robs it of some power. It's Marvel. They're never going to go that dark.

It was cool to see Yelena tearing through her past in the Red Room, though I wish I'd seen some of her missions. She finds Bob in his childhood safe space, where you can hear his parents arguing. The rest of the team joins them, but apart from John Walker earlier, we don't see their own experiences. I would have loved to see what Bucky saw. The showdown happens in the lab where Sentry was created, the same Malaysian lab Yelena was sent to wipe out at the start. They win by letting Bob know he's not alone. That's a beautiful sentiment, but I don't think saving the day with friendship and a hug totally cuts it in a big superhero movie.

I don't feel unsatisfied, but I definitely want more. I was frustrated because I knew we weren't going to get a Thunderbolts 2. Marvel was rolling right into Fantastic Four, Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, so this team wasn't going to get its moment.

Why I think Thunderbolts needed another 30 minutes

You can see creative and business struggling here, which is the relationship that's supposed to exist in Hollywood. If the film is primarily an exploration of mental health, that third act is perfect. But like Bob, the movie has a duality. It also has to deliver as a $180 to $200 million blockbuster that moves the MCU forward. I'd have moved freeing Bob from the Void to the midpoint, had them become the New Avengers, then had them fight a new villain with Sentry in hand.

I'd have kept everything as it is and added 30 minutes or so, putting it around two hours and 40 minutes, the same length as the new Mission Impossible movie. I think it earned that. The writer and director made Beef, a streaming series with more time to tell a story, and I almost feel they needed more time here. I think movies can compete with streaming by being longer. It's very good as it is, but that would have made it as good business-wise as it is creatively.

The Thunderbolts post-credit scene makes them the Avengers

Instead, they tacked on the longest post-credit scene Marvel has done, at about 2 minutes and 54 seconds. That's where the MCU goodies are, the MCU adrenaline rush. Some people missed the mid-credit scene in Sinners, which is essentially part of that movie, and I'd argue this one is truly part of Thunderbolts.

The Thunderbolts are now the Avengers, all in the same black uniform with a red A. They look fantastic. Sam Wilson doesn't show up, which I think is uncool. He should have appeared in some capacity, even on a news broadcast. Instead, he's suing them over the Avengers name. Then they detect an incoming spacecraft, and it's the Fantastic Four's ship. You see the four on board, and the audience goes "Woo!"

I liked how Val tricked them into her press conference, backing them through a tarp to a crowd of journalists. Like a good villain, she gave them what they wanted deep down: the chance to be heroes and Avengers, and to thrive in a refurbished Avengers Tower her company now owns. The only one I'm surprised took the deal was Bucky, who has always stood his ground morally and is now a congressman. I guess he feels it's better to fight the system from inside. There was so little Bucky here.

Why Thunderbolts has an asterisk, and where the name comes from

I think the asterisk is there because Thunderbolts is only a temporary name. By the end, they're calling themselves the New Avengers, but it's actually the Dark Avengers. In the comics, I think the name is sometimes said to come from Thaddeus Ross, nicknamed Thunderbolt. Here it comes from Yelena's childhood soccer team in the undercover family days from Black Widow.

I'm surprised how much I liked this team from the moment they came together. The banter is so good. Compared with Age of Ultron's generic superhero banter, it's night and day. These feel like real, flawed, relatable people with their guards up. And nobody is a jerk, which is pretty good for people who were all supposed to be bad guys at some point. What a contrast to the Penguin series.

The bunker sequence was my favorite part of Thunderbolts

I figured out Val's plan moments before the reveal: she sent everyone there to kill each other, then would incinerate the bunker with her company's evidence and their bodies. Pretty good plan. I liked when her assistant spotted them all huddled together. The bunker sequence was my favorite in the film, and it and the Sentry sequence are largely why I'm planning to see it again.

Highlights include figuring out the elevator shaft, too bad Bob didn't know he could fly yet, and the attack plan going wrong because of electrical issues. The script made the audience feel the tension of whether villains like Ghost and John Walker would come back, then the relief when they did. I liked the team driving away and seeing Bob shoot into the night sky before fainting and falling. I even liked Val complimenting Mel's coffee while they box up Bob for New York. I called her evil Selina Meyer. Some said Selina Meyer herself was evil. I didn't watch every season of Veep, but I saw her as more of a Don Draper type, not actually evil.

The bunker also saves their lives. When Val tells Sentry to kill them, he says they're not a threat, but I think it's because they're his friends. He bonds strongly with Yelena, who looked out for him. I think maybe she relates to him because she was also a weapon created by the system. Their bond reminded me of Natasha and Bruce in Age of Ultron. Maybe there's a small romantic spark, but they could just be friends. Natasha could get through to the Hulk, and Yelena is the only one who reaches Sentry and the Void.

Ranking the characters: Yelena and Val are my top two

Number one is Yelena, the heart and soul of the team and the movie. After watching Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow kept on the sidelines for over a decade, it's nice to see Yelena leading. I think her secret weapon is that she treats everyone as a person. Sam Wilson has high expectations and Yelena has rock bottom ones, but both are compassionate. I'd thought maybe Captain Marvel and Sam would lead, but now I'm thinking maybe Yelena and Sam. Florence Pugh looks amazing, even in loose military fatigues, and from a female perspective she's a fantastic heroine. I think she'll gain a lot of fans, hopefully almost to Wanda levels of likability.

Number two is Val. These two women have been on a collision course since Black Widow's post-credit scene, and that connective tissue is what made the MCU. "They've been serving us dry movies and shows. This one's plenty juicy." Dressed to look motherly, Val touches Bob and is pulled into her past: somewhere in Europe, maybe Italy, under an oppressive government. Her father was a revolutionary, and she accidentally gave away their hiding place. I'd suspect she never saw him again. I'd love to know why she then joined the side that took him. Julia Louis-Dreyfus humanized her, and she was moments from joining former President Ross on the Raft before positioning herself as leader of the New Avengers.

John Walker, Red Guardian, Ghost, Bob and Bucky round out the list

John Walker surprised me. He's the Tony Stark of the team in snark, but deep down he wants to be good, and he always came back. In his Void sequence, he had a Norman Rockwell family but lost it while doomscrolling negative coverage, and Val reveals his wife left with their child. That's relatable. I also liked him riding his taco-shaped shield in the post-credit news coverage.

Everyone loves David Harbour, but Red Guardian's routine is getting old. He seems useless in the field, and his real power is super heart. It feels like Yelena's dad coaching her soccer team with no experience. Ghost has the opposite problem: she deserves to be in the field but lacks lines and development. Her powers look and sound cool, and she takes the team beyond point and shoot. Bob has less personality than everyone else. I want to see Sentry again, but Bob didn't make an impression.

Bucky is dead last because he's hardly in it, and most of his moments were already in the trailers used to sell a film he's not really in. He spends most of his time convincing Mel to become a double agent. Has she never heard of a burner phone? I think Val let it continue because she felt Sentry would kill him. Instead, she ended up with an original Avenger and a congressman on her team.

My Thunderbolts verdict: the characters are the real strength

It's ironic that the film had a marketing problem because its characters aren't well known, when those characters are what make it worthwhile. Maybe it should have swapped places with Captain America 4 or Fantastic Four. Like Suicide Squad and Guardians of the Galaxy, it's a misfit movie suited to the beginning of August. Kicking off the summer season put unfair pressure on a smaller film. Fingers crossed, I thought it might work in its favor, given its tremendous word of mouth and incredible reviews. Maybe people would decide to give it a chance after all.