This article contains spoilers for “Marvel’s Thunderbolts.”
It’s not unusual for a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie to have a vague theme. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014) is an espionage thriller with superheroes. “Ant-Man” (2015) is a heist movie with superheroes. “Spider-Man: Homecoming” (2017) is a high school movie with … well, you get the idea. However, it’s one thing to play with a certain genre’s aesthetic, and completely another to be truly about something.
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From its very first scene, director Jake Schreier’s “Marvel’s Thunderbolts*” shows that it intends to be filed in that latter category. “Thunderbolts*” is a surprisingly mature emotional gut punch throughout, and while it does have enough costumed characters to warrant its inclusion in the superhero genre, it showers the viewer with heavy themes. Sure, the movie has its predictable moments, such as the heavily telegraphed “twist” that Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster dies early in the movie. Yet, its observations of the shadier side of U.S. politics are sharper than anything the safe and forgettable “Captain America: Brave New World” has to offer, and its moments of camaraderie rival some of the most heartwarming moments the MCU has produced. However, the overarching theme of the film is far more complex than any of that: mental health.
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Yes, “Thunderbolts*” is all about mental health in general, making a strong allegory for depression in particular. In the very first scene, Yelena “Black Widow” Belova (Florence Pugh) undertakes a high-stakes CIA wetwork mission while her narration attempts to articulate mental health issues that leave her with a draining sense of emptiness. The movie goes on to make this the central theme for multiple other major characters, too. This includes the film’s powerful antagonist, The Void, who is effectively the physical manifestation of Robert “Bob” Reynolds’ (Lewis Pullman) lifelong, deep depression.
Bob embodies the movie’s central themes
All members of the Thunderbolts have their issues, but the movie’s true masterstroke is Bob — aka Marvel’s Sentry, the “Thunderbolts*” villain who’s more than meets the eye. The film slowly reveals this mysterious survivor of the Sentry Project experiments to have severe mental health problems, which at least partially stem from a horrible, abusive childhood and are amplified by substance abuse. This has left him severely haunted by an internal darkness that he’s named the Void — a Bob-shaped blackness that’s depression manifest.
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When Bob is subjected to the Sentry treatment and gains game-breaking superpowers, the Void also grows stronger. Before it appears, its presence is felt when Yelena, John Walker (Wyatt Russell), and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julie Louis-Dreyfus) all experience visions of their worst memories after physical contact with Bob. This turns out to be a key component of the Void’s depression-coded modus operandi: It turns people into two-dimensional black stains, leaving them trapped in a maze of their worst memories while insisting that they’re meaningless.
Fittingly, the movie’s climax is an allegory for healing. Since there’s no way to physically defeat the Void, Yelena and the others deliberately step into its dark area of effect and navigate their way through their darkest memories. After rejoining and reaching Bob’s own worst memory — the laboratory where the physical incarnation of the Void came to be — they help Bob defeat his inner darkness with positive reassurance. It’s not every day that you see a MCU movie where a big group hug saves the day, but after the movie has spent so much of its runtime exploring the toll destructive behavior has taken on its characters’ mental health, it’s an incredibly fitting choice.
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Thunderbolts* offers an unflinching look into its key characters’ heads
An antagonist like the Void allows the movie to explore its characters’ psyche in a way that’s pretty much unprecedented in the superhero genre. With a combination of Void visions and real world dialogue, we learn that Walker, a self-described great husband and doting father, is a ball of shame and regret who’s barely holding it together after his wife left him in the aftermath of his Captain America downfall on “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” Later on, Val’s vision shows her father being shot by a menacing figure who accuses Val’s dad of being too self-assured and declares that he will take care of Val. This goes a long way toward explaining how Val came to be such a cocky and ruthless figure — and it’s low-key telling that this life-shaping event is her worst memory.
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Yelena’s story gets the most mileage from the Void’s memory traps. The two different peeks into the awful Black Widow training she was subjected to in the Red Room when she was just a child illustrate her sense of emptiness and the overwhelming feeling that she’s done more evil than she can ever truly make up for. This, incidentally, is something she shares with her dearly departed sister Natasha (Scarlett Johansson), who referred to the sensation as having “red on her ledger.”
Even the characters without Void flashbacks receive some attention to their assorted mental health issues. The Red Guardian (David Harbour), for instance, might be a comic relief character, but he has severe self-worth issues — in fact, a late-game heart-to-heart reveals that his slovenly self-isolation has been at least in part because he didn’t believe Yelena needed him.
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The MCU has explored difficult themes before, but rarely this openly
To be fair, “Thunderbolts*” isn’t the only time the MCU has referenced such deep matters. Bucky Barnes’ (Sebastian Stan) difficult past as a brain-washed super soldier is well-established enough at this point that it doesn’t get much attention in this movie. Still, “Thunderbolts*” takes care to reference his traumatic history and show that he’s on the same page as the rest of the characters, to the point that he’s one of the most enthusiastic team members in the climactic group embrace that allows Bob to realize he’s not alone anymore and push back the Void. Bucky knows what’s up. Likewise, Ghost’s (Hannah John-Kamen) traumatic laboratory past and the sense of isolation that comes with her particular power set were key plot points in “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” so they’re only briefly discussed here … but the movie does devote several moments to her slow, difficult bonding with the rest of the team after years of loneliness.
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“Thunderbolts*” isn’t the only recent MCU movie to devote itself to a particular concept. By its very nature, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is about moving forward after a devastating loss. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” carries a message of how compassion and kindness (or lack thereof) can influence people. However, neither movie has the same laser-like focus on a specific allegory that “Thunderbolts*” has — to the point that when the Thunderbolts finally learn to manage their various problems by being there for each other, the movie immediately promotes them to *New Avengers.
