Weekend Watch: Thunder Force
Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer are battling crime in an underpowered super-power story
Image Credit: Netflix
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Melissa McCarthy and director Ben Falcone take aim at the superhero genre. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
Melissa McCarthy and her writing/directing/acting husband Ben Falcone have been taking aim at some different genres of late, including the Black Mirror-esque Superintelligence, which dropped on HBO Max on Christmas Day. In Thunder Force, they look to match their pratfalling style with superheroes. The result is an intermittently funny comedy that doesn’t work as a superhero film either.
Thunder Force introduces us to a world where, in 1983, a weird pulse of energy left a group of people with strange abilities. Unfortunately for the rest of the population, those with the powers or mutations also happened to be a pack of psychopaths later dubbed “Miscreants”. And they’ve been causing trouble for years, though largely budget-friendly small-scale crime as opposed to trying to destroy the planet. Regular citizens have to be on their guard for the incidents, with warning posters plastered around Chicago, where our story is set. We meet Lydia Berman (Vivian Falcone – yes, McCarthy and Falcone’s daughter) and Emily Stanton (Bria D. Singleton) when they bond after Lydia helps Emily deal with some snot-nosed Middle School bullies. Emily is studious and driven, looking to complete the work of her scientist parents, who died during a Miscreant attack. Lydia, on the other hand, is a slobby goof, though she has a good heart and quickly makes friends with Emily. Cut to a few years later and Emily (now played by Octavia Spencer) is a successful businesswoman and scientist, while Lydia (McCarthy) works at the docks. The two grew apart in their teen years and haven’t really talked for a long time, but when Emily comes back to town and continues her experimental attempts to create new super-powered folk to combat the Miscreant menace, they reunite, and Lydia is accidentally gifted super-strength.
Emily trains Lydia (while taking a much easier path to invisibility powers), and the pair soon starts trying out their capabilities. The remainder of the film runs on the exact track the trailer might have led you to suspect: some zaniness, running gags that tend to saunter rather than sprint, a few stabs at genuine emotion, and a lot of McCarthy mugging. Unless you’re a big fan of that combo, this is likely to leave you a little cold. And yet, they clearly have some appeal, or companies would not still be forking over their moderate budgets.
The cash this time has been spread between the effects (which just about scrape by, though naturally can’t match the likes of the MCU or the DCEU) and some solid names, including Jason Bateman, who reunites with his Identity Thief co-star for a silly yet watchable subplot which finds his Crab-Man robber having more than clashes with Lydia. Bobby Cannavale, returning after Superintelligence, Melissa Leo, and Pom Klementieff (more usually found in the Guardians and Avengers movies as Mantis) round out the top of the roster. None of them really get much of a chance to shine, though they all receive the odd line they can do something with.
Spencer in particular gamely does what she can with the role, but she’s largely wasted as the straight woman to McCarthy’s funnier lead. With an Oscar on the mantlepiece and a history as a scene-stealer, it’s a real shame to see her reduced to this.
Thunder Force won’t win over many new recruits to McCarthy and Falcone’s brand of moviemaking, which has become a sort of factory-standard laugh-grabbing that is happy to get by with the bare minimum of guffaws. And the superhero genre? It has been spoofed better than this before.
Thunder Force is on Netflix now.