SPOILERS ALERT!!!

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

I’ve seen my birthday movie this year and it’s ‘Thunderbolts*’, the latest ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’ movie released at cinemas. I enjoyed ‘Thunderbolts*’, finding it a compelling action-packed film to spend 126 minutes on when seeing it on the big screen.

The film’s asterisk stands for ‘The New Avengers’. That’s revealed in the end credits of the film. Whilst this does set up things for the upcoming ‘Avengers’ films happening in 2026 and 2027, at least ‘Thunderbolts*’ makes sense as a movie title compared to ‘Emma.’. 😀

‘Thunderbolts*’, as a film, features returning characters from previous ‘MCU’ films and TV shows, including ‘Black Widow’ and ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’, which I haven’t seen for a while since seeing them on Disney+ in 2021. No need to worry about it.

The film is relatively easy to get into, and you’re given background information on some of the characters as you watch the film itself. You’ll just have to go back and check out previous ‘MCU’ films and TV shows so you can understand certain characters in this film.

In ‘Thunderbolts*’, a group of antiheroes are caught in a deadly trap and are forced to work together on a dangerous mission. The film does start off in being gritty and down-to-earth before it progresses further into dream-like and fantasy scenarios. It makes it captivating.

The film stars Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, who you could say is like the main character in the story. She’s been in ‘Black Widow’ and the ‘MCU’ series ‘Hawkeye’ and she happens to be the adoptive sister of Natasha Romanaoff/Black Widow who got killed.

Sebastian Stan returns as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier in the film. It was nice to see Bucky again after previously seeing his cameo in ‘Captain America: Brave New World’. It’s so intriguing he ends up in the Thunderbolts team and gets to interact with the others.

Wyatt Russell returns as John Walker/U.S. Agent. Previously, he was in ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ series and was meant to be Captain America after Steve Rogers before he murdered someone with the Captain America shield. He has a bitter and sarcastic attitude in the film.

Olga Kurylenko returns as Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster, who’s also been in ‘Black Widow’. It has been a while since I’ve seen ‘Black Widow’, so I couldn’t quite recall her. She mostly wore a mask and a hoodie, and she gets killed off about one third in the movie.

Lewis Pullman stars as Bob Reynolds/Sentry. It was interesting to see this character suffering from amnesia whilst tapping into the memories of some of the Thunderbolts. Sentry later becomes the Void, an evil shadowy version of himself that spreads darkness.

David Harbour stars as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, who’s also been in ‘Black Widow’. He’s like a father-figure to Belova, and it was fascinating to see their relationship in the film. David Harbour also provides the comic relief as Red Guardian in the movie. 🙂

Hannah John-Kamen stars as Ava Starr/Ghost. If you’ve forgotten who this character is, she was in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’. It was nice to see her being one of the goodies in the film and later joining up with the Thunderbolts before they’re renamed the New Avengers.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, a character who’s been in ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ series and the film ‘Black Widow’. It was fascinating to see this person seeking to obtain control of the Thunderbolts members throughout the movie.

There’s Geraldine Viswanathan as Mel, who is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s assistant, Chris Bauer as Holt, a security officer for O.X.E. Group, Wendell Pierce as congressman Gary, and Gabrielle Byndloss reprises her role of John Walker’s wife Olivia in the movie. 🙂

She was in ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’, apparently. Anyway, ‘Thunderbolts*’ was a worthwhile film to check out at the cinema. I’m glad I saw it for my birthday and I’m very glad the film reintroduced certain characters who’ve been in previous ‘MCU’ productions.

I’m currently wondering where the Thunderbolts or New Avengers characters are going to go next, especially with them announced for the upcoming ‘Avengers’ films. I’m intrigued about the post-credits scene of the New Avengers seeing the Fantastic Four spacecraft in outer space.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂