It’s only a matter of time before everyone in Hollywood will play a superhero. Melissa McCarthy, Jason Bateman, and Octavia Spencer can now cross their own names off the list. Thunder Force isn’t life changing cinema, but as an attempt to cram a Melissa McCarthy comedy into the superhero genre, it mostly gets by on charm alone.
Spencer and McCarthy play Emily and Lydia, best friends growing up. But as they get ready to leave high school, they drift apart. Now an adult, Lydia is going through the motions of being a Chicago dock worker, while Emily has built an entire company around defending the Earth from “Miscreants:” supervillains like Laser (Pom Klementieff) and The Crab (Jason Bateman) who use their powers to take whatever they want. While trying too woo Emily to their high school reunion, Lydia accidentally injects herself with superhero serum, leading her on the path to becoming a superhero and reconnecting with her old friend.
McCarthy has primarily worked with two directors on her comedies: Paul Feig, and her husband Ben Falcone. It’s truly amazing that Feig understands how to use McCarthy in movies better than her own husband, because the Falcone/McCarthy movies (Tammy, The Boss, Life of the Party), are at best mediocre. The majority of the humor used here is that safe, producer friendly kind. The minute something weird happens onscreen, the other characters in the scene spend their time commenting on how weird that thing is to make it 1,000% clear what is so funny about what is happening. Do you know how many laughs you usually get explaining why a joke is funny? 0. So the movie only really works when Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy are onscreen together, since their comedy chops are a step above the other actors in this movie. Bobby Canavale and Pom Klementieff don’t get enough time to make a lasting impression, and poor Octavia Spencer and Melissa Leo are reduced to playing the movie straight, a waste of two Oscar worthy actresses.
And for those of you superhero fans hoping for something new and fresh, Thunder Force is a pretty surface level look at superhero life. Occasionally Falcone and McCarthy will find something interesting, like injection methods for superpowers, how they hook up with one another, or the infeasibility of their transportation. However, the story is less a superhero movie and more of a buddy dramedy about two friends learning to reconnect with one another. McCarthy and Spencer sink easily into the kooky/straight-edged schtick and coast on it for just over 90 minutes. It’s nothing special, but I wasn’t actively rooting against it either. It falls into that Netflix sweet spot of “can watch while doing something else.”
Now that all the people can check “played a superhero” off their Hollywood right of passage. I want the next movies to get even stranger with who they’re casting. I got it! The documentary All Stars All Heroes, starring Mr. Rogers, Cătălin Tolontan, Undead Dick Johnson, James Baldwin, and Billy MacFarland to star in Netflix’s latest superhero craze. Even if that means Mr. Rogers gets to talk to James Baldwin, I’m so in…