Written and directed by Ben Falcone, ‘Thunder Force‘ is a comedy superhero film co-produced by Melissa McCarthy. It was released on Netflix.

Chicago native and forklift driver Lydia Berman (Melissa McCarthy) lives in a world where supervillains called Miscreants are terrorizing the population. Prior to her high school reunion, she reaches out to her estranged friend Emily Stanton (Octavia Spencer) whom she has known since grade school. The two had a falling out during college and went their separate ways. Emily is a geneticist who is working to create a formula to give normal folks powers to fight off the bad guys after her parents were killed by one. When she does not show for the reunion, Lydia goes to her business and accidentally gets injected with a super strength serum. Emily later takes another variety and the two work together as the Thunder Force to stop the villainous politician known as the King (Bobby Cannavale) and the evil Miscreant known as Laser (Pom Klementieff) from destroying the city.

One good thing about this movie is, it has Melissa McCarthy. She can be genuinely funny and her comedic one-liners still got a chuckle out of me every now and then.

Honestly, that is the only good thing I can say about this movie. The plot takes aim at superhero movies, giving a parody of sorts to the genre. At least, I think that is what they were going for, but they did not deliver on any of the levels you would expect for a movie with this sort of cast list. It was mediocre and only funny by accident at times.

The jokes that I laughed at quickly lost their meaning as they drug the punchlines out until you forgot what the joke was, to begin with. For instance, McCarthy’s character gets a crush on a man with crab arms, creatively named Crab played by Jason Bateman. There is a dance sequence as they gaze into each other’s eyes that seems to go on forever. It was funny for about ten seconds, but then I literally thought that maybe Crab was hypnotizing her until her friend snapped her back to reality. It was like that with almost every joke, as if they wanted the audience to know, “Hey, this is a joke. We’ll give you an extra amount of time just to make it clear to you.” There is also an over-reliance on gross-out humor that is more stomach-churning than funny.

Finally, The King was not intimidating as a villain. He makes boneheaded mistakes such as revealing himself to the Thunder Force. Ironically, the duo does not really do anything with this information. They just kind of hope to stop him.

Bottom line, Thunder Force is the mediocre Hollywood comedy you come to expect these days. It takes no comedic risk and relies on boring tropes we have seen a million times. It was not clever or interesting and it turns you off pretty quickly.

PARENTAL CONCERNS: Foul language, Violence

FAVORITE QUOTES: What is Jodie Foster’s problem?

Check out the trailer below:

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. Tell me if there is a comic book, movie, or novel you would like me to review. While you are at it, check out my movie reviews of Tom & Jerry and Sentinelle. Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more posts like this one.

You can find me everywhere on social media! Facebook: Author Jacob Airey | Instagram: realjacobairey | Twitter: @realJacobAirey | MeWe: Link | YouTube: StudioJake | Rumble: StudioJake Media