Thunderbolts* Is the Ultimate Millennial Movie

Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts* isn’t just another super-powered team-up flick. It’s a cinematic gut punch aimed straight at the collective burnout, existential dread, and systemic disillusionment of an entire generation. For millennials, this movie doesn’t feel like escapism—it feels like a mirror, and we really get to see ourselves.

The antihero ensemble of Thunderbolts* is composed almost entirely of characters who have been tossed aside by institutions they once trusted. Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, John Walker, Red Guardian, Ghost, and Taskmaster are all broken, used, and/or discarded. They are angry. They are traumatized. And most of all, they are exhausted. That exhaustion is the emotional throughline of the movie—a direct link to the millennial condition.

Trauma Is the Resume, But Loyalty Is a Death Sentence

Each Thunderbolt is recruited not for who they are but for what they've survived. They're selected by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, a woman who embodies the kind of soulless employer millennials know all too well: charming on the surface, exploitative underneath. She dangles the illusion of purpose, loyalty, and redemption while ultimately viewing her people as tools—expendable and replaceable.

The lie they are sold is one millennials were raised on: if you work hard and follow the rules, you will be rewarded. That lie is shattered over and over throughout the film. These characters are manipulated into risking their lives on a suicide mission because their pain, their trauma, and their abilities are profitable to someone else. Not because they matter. Not because they are respected.

Depression, Disillusionment, and Dark Humor

From its visual tone to its character banter, Thunderbolts* exudes the emotional and stylistic trademarks of a generation raised on snark, memes, and moral ambiguity. It’s a movie where the main cast fights for validation, not applause, though their starvation from either leaves them interchangeable. Where trauma isn't a plot device but a weight each character drags behind them. The dry, sarcastic wit that colors much of the dialogue isn’t just Marvel banter—it’s a coping mechanism.

There’s a palpable millennial energy in watching heroes confront the fact that the people in power aren’t just flawed—they're toxic. The desire to burn it all down isn’t framed as villainy here. It’s painted as a form of rebirth.

Work That Matters, Recognition That Never Comes

What ultimately drives the Thunderbolts isn’t glory, patriotism, or the hope that their work might matter in some grand historical sense. They’ve accepted that meaning, loyalty, and redemption are illusions designed to keep them compliant. At this point, they want some glory because that’s all that’s left. Something to call their own in a world that has increasingly denied them ownership—of homes, of futures, of dignity... That last part might be more us than them.

In a culture where millennials are the most educated and underpaid generation in modern history, and where the cost of survival is the erosion of your personality, time, and mental health, the desire for recognition is not about ego. It's about surviving the grind long enough to carve out something that’s theirs. Even if it’s fleeting. Even if it’s messy.

Those "Fans" Will Say It’s Mid. We Know Why.

Despite Thunderbolts earning an astoundingly high and well-deserved Rotten Tomatoes score, the usual chorus of so-called "critics" and terminally online "fans" are whining like clockwork. Their outrage, of course, is predictably aimed at a movie that dares to center a non-white, non-male lead—even if the cast, ironically, is still almost all painfully pale. That disconnect would be hilarious if it weren’t so consistently exhausting.

These people don’t engage with film. They regurgitate nostalgia. They see anything new, unfamiliar, or—heaven forbid—diverse as a threat to their imaginary golden age of cinema, which, let’s be honest, was mostly white guys mumbling through daddy issues and punching each other, or to focus on the most dominantly annoying, the worshippers of the universe that lacks saturation and built on the most powerful super hero allowing the most preventable death to his father happen... the same father who told his son he should have let a bus full of kids die.

They’re not just bad at criticism, logical thought, and—let’s be honest—probably basic hygiene. They’re allergic to growth. If you still can’t recognize how gender, race, and emotional vulnerability get penalized more harshly in reviews and discourse than actual storytelling, you’re either willfully ignorant or too fragile to confront your own biases. And in that case, your opinion isn’t just invalid—it’s exactly why films like Thunderbolts* and Sinners cloak their hearts in Hollywood spectacle and subversive brilliance just to survive. Luckily, they do not just survive; they thrive.

The Heroes That Get No Thanks

Without giving away the ending, Thunderbolts makes one thing painfully clear: even when millennials do the work, save the day, and pick up the pieces no one else will, entrenched institutions still won't see them as worthy. The film underscores how those in power—the ones who never leave, never retire, and never make room—are more interested in preserving their version of the narrative than acknowledging anyone else's contribution or needs.

These are the same institutions upheld by "experts" who treat outdated hierarchies as sacred. Maybe they’re not as blatantly hateful or ignorant as the people who build statues to Confederate traitors, but the effect is familiar. These are the folks who still argue the greatest athletes of all time are the ones who played before segregation ended. They cling to the past because they fear what an honest present would reveal about their place in it. Because even with their head start, they see us catching up and running past them.

It’s a brutal reflection of the real world, where recognition often skips a generation, and gatekeepers refuse to let go. The characters of Thunderbolts* echo the same frustration many millennials feel: being told to save a world that won’t thank them, won’t reward them, and definitely won’t remember them unless they rewrite the rules themselves.

Thunderbolts* releases in theaters on May 2, 2025.

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About Thunderbolts*

Release Date: May 2, 2025 Director: Jake Schreier

Story by: Eric Pearson

Screenplay by: Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo

Producer: Kevin Feige

Executive Producers: Louis D’Esposito, Brian Chapek, Jason Tamez Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, Chris Bauer, Wendell Pierce, with David Harbour, with Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis- Dreyfus

SYNOPSIS

In “Thunderbolts*” Marvel Studios assembles an unconventional team of antiheroes—Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster and John Walker. After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, these disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts. Will this dysfunctional group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and unite as something much more before it’s too late?

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Do you think Thunderbolts* will get the thinly veiled snub from Variety that other non-white male-led films always receive? What other recent films have wrapped their truth in metaphors that go over the heads of their criticized targets? And how long can Hollywood pretend a significant portion of the backlash isn’t bigoted coded? Let me know in the comments or @me.