Riddle me this: If the media keeps boasting about how much of a brilliant actress you are, and you do nothing but star in crappy movie vehicles created by your husband, are you really that much of an actress? I ask that because I’ve about lost all tolerance for Melissa McCarthy. Maybe at one time in her career, she seemed like she could rise to the top of the heap. But her insistence on allowing her husband Ben Falcone to sabotage her career with consistently awful movies has completely tainted any remaining good faith in her.
In a world terrorized by super-villains known as “Miscreants,” one woman has developed the process to give superpowers to regular people. But when scientist Emily Stanton accidentally imbues her estranged best-friend with incredible abilities, the two women must become the first superhero team. Now, it is up to Thunder Force to battle the super-powered Miscreants and save Chicago from the clutches of the evil mayor.
McCarthy just insists on working in movies that not even the Happy Madison group would touch, and it’s shocking how Hollywood keeps allowing her big exposure. McCarthy comes from that school of thought that if she just talks non-stop she’ll draw laughs. She talks, and talks, almost never shutting up, and never allowing for some reactions from the cast. McCarthy makes the movie so much about her and only her, even as the movie purports to be a duel comedy co-starring Octavia Spencer. Spencer is noticeably a second fiddle, despite sharing all the publicity as McCarthy literally does nothing but spit verbal diarrhea until something lands by accident.
She does everything from flossing, and awkwardly referencing Steve Urkel, and there’s even a disgusting recurring gag involving eating raw chicken. All the while characters react with dumbfounded cringes. McCarthy has zero comic timing and Falcone seems content to let her improvise every joke rather than script the intended comedy. When the movie turns in to a superhero flick, it can barely muster up the enthusiasm to have fun with the narrative, going for outright silliness rather than taking the opportunity to satirize the sub-genre. The whole crab shtick with Jason Bateman is yet another swing and a miss. Bobby Cannavale and Pom Klementiff seem to be in the wrong movie, and every time they show up, it shifts the horrendous narrative in to a half baked semi serious superhero film.
“Thunder Force” is yet another piece of garbage from the team of Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone, the former of whom has destroyed all of her career momentum for god awful vehicle after god awful vehicle. Even in the superhero dominated movie landscape, “Thunder Force” is a vanity vehicle best ignored and pushed into obscurity.
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