Thunder Force Review

May 8, 2021 at 9:35pm
By Jason Stettner

Thunder Force is a Netflix Original film that follows two women as they, through a series of mishaps both end up with portions of super powers. Together, they aim to take down a criminal that has been terrorizing the local city. The two are past long term friends that are reconnecting after years, and that of course creates some attempts at humor since this is supposed to be a comedy.

It was in general a bit awkward between the two as they lacked proper chemistry to really make the duo setup properly work. You have Lydia (Melissa McCarthy) as the audience’s entry into the experience of this super powered tech company. There she meets that long time friend once again for the first time in years, Emily (Octavia Spencer).

Emily is the smart one, Lydia is the dumb but street smart one. It’s very cliché, as is the majority of this insanely generic and bland film. I was going to, for a moment note that this was a take on the genre but it really isn’t as you can guess the plot basically moments in. It doesn’t try to be different or special at any point. There’s an element of trying to be clever, but that’s really not the case.

I found this to be a painful viewing, terribly unoriginal and just rather unfunny. It’s also really just bizarre, particularly Jason Bateman’s “The Crab” as that provides some insanely out there moments that I really don’t even know how to describe quite honestly. Unsettling? Slightly cringe-worthy, something along there. No issue with the actor, but in combination with McCarthy’s character those moments were just chilling in the worst of ways.

I didn’t really have much of an issue with Klementieff’s “Laser” character, nor with Boby Cannavale’s “The King” as those were decent villains with some different abilities. It just seemed like they were thrown into a story that didn’t necessarily make a whole lot of sense.

They also didn’t really have much direction, or purpose aside from popping every once and awhile as pure bad guys. It was really a by the numbers sort of setup that didn’t aim to do anything unique and failed to garner any sort of hilarity for the situations that went on. They even attempted the whole, I’m angry at you sort of thing and that didn’t feel very deep or well executed.

I’d comment on the whole aesthetic angle of how this was shot, but it comes across as very low budget overall. It wasn’t too pleasing, and it really didn’t stand out a whole lot in any particular visual way. I will say the costumes were fine though I suppose, the crab arms must have taken some work to pull off.

The Conclusion

Thunder Force is a horribly unfunny and rather bland effort in regards to being a super hero film. I do understand I may not be the particular target audience for this type of movie, but I just don’t see the appeal overall for anyone looking at this experience.

If you’re a McCarthy fan you may find this to be on brand with what she does, but this even seems lackluster in comparison to her other efforts. I tried to find the best in this particular setup, but it just didn’t provide any laughs like a comedy should, or even any dramatic points that would get be engaged with what this had to offer. It’s not a good time, and very much so not worth the effort to view it.

Thunder Force Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Content Access was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 0