JOSE ROMERO
senior editor
Netflix’s “Thunder Force” is categorized as a comedy, but it probably shouldn’t be.
The film begins by setting up a vague premise about a laser from space giving sociopaths superpowers.
Seriously, not joking.
These sociopaths become villains called miscreants and wind up killing the parents of one of the two main characters, Emily, played by Octavia Spencer. Emily is young when her parents are killed and swears to avenge their deaths, no matter how long it takes.
Her character is a generically written smart person, unlike her counterpart, Lydia — played by Melissa McCarthy — who is generically dumb.
The beginning of the movie is alright.
The relationship between the two girls is believable, and there is a genuine feeling of friendship between them. Dialogue is not great, but it’s serviceable. Honestly, if the film would have focused on the actresses playing the young versions of the main characters, it could have been better.
However, after a shoehorned argument between Emily and Lydia, they separate for years and do not reunite until adulthood.
McCarthy has been typecasted for years as the same dopey
with Emily in a dream scenario.
character, and it is unfortunately prominent in “Thunder Force.” Lydia is unbearably dimwitted and there are almost no redeeming qualities to her. Emily isn’t any better.
She is bland and comes off as unnecessarily stern. There is chemistry between the two leading actresses, but the script doesn’t do them any favors.
As adults, Lydia wants to reunite with Emily and discovers she opened a science facility nearby. Lydia takes a trip to the facility and visits Emily’s office where she clumsily mashes buttons in an unsecured lab housing a superhero machine that Emily has been working on for years. Lydia manages to activate the start-up sequence and falls into the chair which injects her with a hero vaccine, giving her superhuman strength.
The entire plot could have been prevented with a lock.
Funnily enough, it doesn’t make sense to have a machine in the first place, because Emily gains the power of invisibility by taking pills instead. So, why not make the process pill-based?
The entire film is littered with logical fallacies and the comedic elements don’t do enough legwork to help mitigate the issues.
Studios seriously need to understand that referencing Fortnite is not the foundation of a funny joke. Seeing two adults do dances from the game does quite the opposite of making a person laugh.
There are far too many pop culture references, moments in which the film lingers on a joke for too long and moments where the joke does not land at all. The script needed another revision. It is not entirely bad, though.
Jerry, Jason Bateman’s character, has crab pincers, and that’s pretty funny to see. Also, Tracy — played by Taylor Mosby — is a decent character with the most development out of the entire cast.
The twist is obvious, the action scenes have no stakes whatsoever and the outfit designs are generic and lack personality, like the film.
Do not watch this movie unless thunder forced to.
