Thunderbolts: Struggling to Save the World & Our Own Minds | Recap & Explained - video Dailymotion

The Take Film TV Movie

Thunderbolts has become a hit with audiences because it went back to what works and managed to meet the moment. In this video, we're unpacking what it got right about one of the biggest battles...

Transcript

00:00Thunderbolts, the new Marvel film starring Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan

00:04as Bucky Barnes, and more, is a welcome change of pace from recent MCU fare. One of the biggest

00:10reasons it resonates so much is that it wasn't afraid to actually be about something. While a

00:16lot of superhero films and shows across the board have felt like they've lost their way in their

00:20connection to their human elements over the recent years, Thunderbolts has found success

00:25by going in the opposite direction. It confronts the humanity of its characters and their situations

00:31head on, unafraid of exploring the dark while also remembering to find the light. So let's take a

00:37closer look at what Thunderbolts really has to say, and why audiences have connected with it so much.

00:43We open on Yelena going through the motions of a mission while unpacking the deep emptiness she

00:48feels. There's something wrong with me. She may be good at her job, but she feels like she's living

00:56a life without purpose. Valentina is facing impeachment for her work with a biochemical company,

01:03whose sentry project aimed to create superhumans who, unlike the Avengers, could be controlled.

01:09In the effort to thwart her trial, she enlists a group, Yelena Belova, Ava Starr, Taskmaster,

01:14and John Walker, to destroy the laboratory and thus conceal her involvement. Eventually,

01:20they realize that they've all been instructed to take each other out too, since their knowledge

01:24of the project creates more loose ends. And it is a trap set to explode and destroy all remaining

01:30evidence, including them, but they're able to escape just in time. Realizing she's got a big

01:36problem on her hands, not only are the mercenaries still alive, they had also run into Bob, a subject of

01:42the experiment who was thought to be dead. Valentina brings her own team to take them out.

01:47But it turns out that those sentry trials did work to some degree. Bob very much has some superpowers,

01:53though he doesn't quite seem able to control them. He uses them to help the others escape.

01:58Bob is captured, and Valentina decides to try to use him for her own gain. After teaming up with Red

02:04Guardian and eventually Bucky Barnes, the team decides to try to save Bob. During his time with

02:09Valentina, however, he has changed. He's now even more powerful than before, and seemingly much more

02:16in control. At Valentina's behest, he easily fights off the Thunderbolt's crew, but then also starts to

02:22wonder, if he's so powerful, why should he have to follow anyone's orders? Fearing losing control over

02:29him, they hit the kill switch, which essentially locks Bob down inside his own mind. But instead of

02:34fully incapacitating him, this instead leads to his dark alter ego, the Void, totally taking over.

02:42Not just him, but soon all of New York City itself. This isn't just a literal darkness, however.

02:48While trapped in this in-between space, people are stuck essentially reliving their worst memories.

02:55This Void represents an issue many people have to contend with, and that Yelena herself was already

03:01battling. Becoming so overwhelmed by your own grief and trauma that you become unable to even

03:07imagine a light at the end of the tunnel. And everyone here is dealing with this to some degree.

03:12These are people who have done a lot of bad things in their lives, and have all but given up on the

03:17idea of redemption. This Void pulls this into its own separate dimension. Actually trapping everyone,

03:24replaying these terrible moments, unable to escape. Already in a state of despair and disillusionment

03:30herself, Yelena decides to take the plunge and enter the darkness. She's met with terrible

03:36memories from her own past. Things she had tried to suppress, but that had always been bubbling

03:41under the surface, threatening to pull her under. She's eventually able to reach Bob's own

03:46consciousness and finds that he, too, is trapped. In Bob, we see a literalized version of the split

03:52of one's being that can come from mental illness and anguish. The darkest parts of ourselves threaten

03:58to totally subsume the rest of us. Yelena understands this on a personal level. She,

04:03too, became trapped by who she was, what she had done and was forced to do, and had come to feel

04:09that she was in such a deep hole that there was no way out, and no point of even trying to get out.

04:16You see some Bob, however, how important it is to fight through those feelings, and also how you can't

04:21do it alone. She and the other Thunderbolts join together to help give Bob the courage and belief in

04:27himself to be able to fight back and gain control over his own mind, in turn vanquishing the void.

04:33While a shadow superhuman overtaking an entire city is fantastical superhero fodder, the basic

04:39struggles at the heart of the story are intimately relatable to so many. But while we might not be

04:45getting literally taken over by the darkness, many of us are struggling with the effects of mental

04:51health issues and a society that exacerbates them. According to a 2022 data from the National

04:56Institute of Mental Health, approximately 23% of adults in the US were dealing with mental health

05:01issues, 6% with serious mental illness. Only around half of people dealing with mental illness had

05:07received mental health treatment over the previous year. Treating and dealing with mental illness can

05:12be difficult for a number of reasons. Lack of access to care, the cost of care, the illness itself

05:17leading one to avoid treatment, etc. But there's also the issue of outside factors, the way the

05:23world and society we live in contributes to our issues. And this is the level that Thunderbolts

05:28really connects on. It's not just one issue, but multiple compounding problems, psychological and

05:35physical, local and global, that come together to make it feel like we're up against nearly impossible

05:41odds. There's a feeling among many young adults of being constantly up against something seemingly

05:47insurmountable. Losing, getting back up and brushing yourself off, only to get knocked down again and

05:53again. And starting to wonder if it really is even possible to turn things around. Millennials,

05:59for example, were long chided for being overly optimistic about being able to change things for

06:03the better. But as time has gone on and they've continued to get hit with wave after wave of

06:08institutional and societal failure, that optimism has depleted. According to a report by the Bennett

06:14Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, during the late 1990s and early 2000s,

06:19as the first cohort of millennials were in their late teens and university years, millennial

06:24satisfaction with democracy was in fact higher than among their parents' generation. Only following

06:29the early 2000s recession did millennial satisfaction with democracy begin to trend downwards, before

06:35crashing lower with the global financial crisis. This suggests that the democratic disconnect

06:40is not a given, but the result of concrete factors in millennial life trajectories.

06:45That, of course, isn't something that's restricted to millennials. Gen Z are following a similar path

06:50and feel even worse off because they never even got that momentary optimism about the future.

06:56The report notes,

06:57Moreover, this last point illustrates a broader injustice produced by wealth inequality.

07:21Society in which the chances of success or failure in life depend less upon hard work

07:27and enterprise, and more upon inherited wealth and privilege. The Void showcases this interplay of

07:33the inner mental world and the outer physical world. Bob agreed to join the Sentry Trials in the first place

07:39because he was miserable with his life and hoped that this would be a chance for change, to finally turn

07:44things around. But instead, those richer and more powerful used him for their own interests,

07:50without any thought to how it would affect him as a person. In this way, he's an interesting contrast

07:56with Steve Rogers, who was also pulled into an attempt to morph a regular guy into a superhuman.

08:02Neither had any idea what they were really signing up for. And when the experiments work, both are used by

08:08those in power for their own ends. Steve becomes disillusioned due to realizing that the world isn't like he

08:14imagined it to be at all. Bob's biggest struggle is more internal. Even after he gains enough power to free

08:22himself from their grasp, he still isn't free because he becomes trapped in a prison of his own making.

08:28The only way he was able to find some kind of control was to take it through violence and attempting to pull

08:34others down with him. But even when it might seem like the core of who he was had been totally consumed and erased,

08:41it's still there in his subconscious trying its best to hold on. And deep, deep down, as disillusioned and

08:48despondent as she might feel, Yelena feels this within herself, too. The film opens with her delving

08:55into how miserable and hopeless she feels, how her life feels without purpose. But over the course of

09:01her story, we see again and again that her spark hasn't been totally snuffed out. When it feels like all is lost

09:08and we're in an unwinnable situation, there is still that little voice in us that wants to try

09:14one more time to fight back. To fight for ourselves. But it can take that outside help to remind us that

09:21we do deserve to follow that voice. To make it stand for ourselves. And to finally make it out the other

09:28side. A big part of the reason Thunderbolts works so well is because it goes back to a basic tenet of

09:34storytelling. Ordinary people in extraordinary situations. These characters aren't superheroes.

09:40They're everyday people who have been thrust into situations against their will again and again.

09:45Trying to figure out how to do the right thing. Or if there even is a right thing. They're not

09:51optimistic about this world or their ability to survive it because they don't have the protection

09:56of super abilities. They know they're just going to have to use what they've got to go up against

10:01whatever comes their way. And a lot of the time, that sucks. With all of the other real superheroes

10:08still out and about in this world, some might wonder why these people ended up having to save

10:14the world this time. But the people with the power to effect change not showing up when they're needed

10:19most and leaving everyone else to their own devices isn't terribly far fetched. While the fight against the

10:25void is out of this world, the real battle of the film is against something very human. And that's what

10:31makes it feel so genuinely powerful when they do overcome the darkness together. It's also notable that

10:37the film managed to dive into all of these themes in a way that feels relatable, without getting

10:42distractingly melodramatic or feeling like it just hand weighs away everything at the last minute for a happy ending.

10:48Is it enough to pull people back into being hype about the MCU? Only time will tell. But that also doesn't

10:54really matter because it works well as a film on its own. Which is actually why it works so well.

11:00Obviously it's connected to the larger MCU canon and events, but because the themes are about genuine

11:06things that everyone can relate to and understand, you don't feel like you need to have seen the last

11:1045 MCU releases to connect to the film or understand what's going on. Since the loss of the Avengers,

11:17there's been a hunt for replacements. Sentry Program hoped to make some new superhumans that could be

11:22more easily controlled. President Ross asks Sam Wilson to restart the group in Captain America

11:28Brave New World. But here, Valentina takes control in a swift PR move to save herself yet again,

11:34branding this team the new Avengers. This switch from brightly colored superpowered quippy heroes to

11:40downtrodden normal people who are just trying their best does feel very fitting for our current moment.

11:47We're all entering this alarming new era together. And we're all going to have to come together to

11:53find that light on the other side. That's the take! Click here to watch the video we think you'll love.

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Thunderbolts: Struggling to Save the World & Our Own Minds | Recap & Explained

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