Jason Bateman

(Netflix Streaming, December 2022) If you’ve seen any of Melissa McCarthy’s, oh, last dozen movies (especially those four written and directed by her husband Ben Falcone), then you should know what to expect from Thunder Force as well—McCarthy as a more likable-than-smart woman-of-the-people thrust in an extraordinary situation, complete with basic gags, simplistic plotting and conventional (nay: ingratiating) crowd-pleasing. This time around, two elements are slightly different: a premise in which supervillains run freely around Chicago, and the presence of Viola Davis as a childhood friend who has since become an ultra-rich scientist with a revenge fixation on avenging her parents’ death at the hands of a supervillain. None of the supervillain stuff is explored in any depth, and while McCarthy/Falcone make much out of superintelligence (or having a lot of money, both recurring themes in their filmography), the rest of the film is strict grade-six stuff. Seriously: one plot twist is telegraphed so clumsily that it’s a wonder it was ever meant as a twist. The fun here begins when McCarthy’s protagonist blunt-forces her way into her old estranged friend’s laboratory and gulps down the first of many treatments for super-strength, giving them a fighting chance against the supervillains. There are some political shenanigans here featuring Bobby Carnivale, but nothing too surprising. Jason Bateman pops up as a not-so-villain supervillain, while Taylor Mosby has a spirited turn as her mother’s daughter. Thunder Force is clearly no Lightning Force: it’s all bluster and loud sounds without much flash to it. We’ve been in the degenerate phase of superhero movies for long enough that this feels like a very tepid take on overly familiar elements, with the actors going through their usual motions without surprising anyone along the way. McCarthy, as is often the case, forgets that she’s at her best not as a star but as an ensemble player—but she doesn’t let Davis take enough space or retort as ferociously. I strongly suspect that improv took the already-loose script a few notches lower, and this is not a film that had any excess quality to spare in the first place. Saying that it’s a waste would require that it had something to waste. Instead, we get a watchable (but not too closely) riff on common clichés. Thunder Force is not going to age well, but that’s fine—being a Netflix production, it’s about to disappear in their back catalogue forever.