Thunder Force - Sadly a bit Disappointing & not Hilarious Superhero Comedy Movie

Last night there was finally a new movie that really looked interesting. From the moment I watched the trailer and noticed the lead cast, I decided it was a must watch movie on its premiere date. So after finishing my work and gone home, I spend the night watching this. And let's get right on it now.

Brief Story Line

Lydia (Melissa McCarthy - Life of the Party, The Heat etc) and Emily (Octavia Spencer - The Shape of Water, Doolittle etc) who used to be childhood best friends were living in a world where sociopaths had super powers and wreaking havoc. Emily who has become a very successful & rich woman manage to create something that would give powers to regular people. Due to some mishaps, Lydia somehow acquired the power and together with Emily they trained to be super heroes to fight against the villains who were called Miscreants.

Meanwhile The King (Bobby Cannavale - Motherless Brooklyn, Ferdinand etc) was running for mayor with the premise of controlling those miscreants led by Laser (Pom Klementieff - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and its prequel, etc). Lydia and Emily who finally got their act together and called themselves Thunder Force start to fight the Miscreants and encountered with several of them, including The Crab (Jason Bateman - Game Night, Ozark TV series etc).

So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I said above that I was looking forward to this movie as it seemed to promise lots of laughter. However after watching this one, sadly I did not find it to be hilarious at all. In fact there were too little scenes that could make me laugh. It looked like the writings were not particularly good in making funny dialogues (despite having McCarthy as one of the co-writers). I think only one scene that at least make me laugh out loud (during one of those training days) but the rest only gave me a bit of chuckles. There was a single scene that I thought was useless and felt ridiculous instead of funny (the one where they met The Crab for the first time).

The story itself was pretty standard and very predictable. I personally thought Melissa McCarthy tried her best and few times she did give me a smile, but too bad it was not enough to make the movie that interesting. Her chemistry with Octavia Spencer was OK but sometimes did not look too convincing as estranged best friends. The action was so so, though it was not a factor that disappoint me as it is after all a superhero comedy movie and not meant to be a serious one. Btw it was classified for 13+, so quite family friendly but not safe enough for children.

The supporting cast here were also a bit under utilized. Jason Bateman gave his usual witty & snark comments but only very little. Pom Klementieff's performance as Laser was a bit too similar with her role as Mantis in MCU. Bobby Cannavale was at least quite entertaining as The King. Oh there was also Melissa Leo (The Equalizer 2, Frozen River etc) as Emily's trusted lead security Allie, but did not give too much impression. I did like the performance of Taylor Mosby as Tracy who helped Thunder Force.

What I did enjoy about this movie was the many familiar songs that I liked as teenagers. The visual effects were OK though not spectacular. But other than that, there were nothing too special. In fact the only feeling I had was disappointment of not having the best time, especially with the high anticipation after watching its trailer. Yes, they did make a truly interesting and fun trailer which made it even more upsetting when it failed to live up to its expectation. 

Overall, this movie might be entertaining enough for those who just want to have fun without over thinking. But those who knew McCarthy and expect more hilarious scenes & witty dialogues like me would definitely be disappointed. There were not even absurd scenes that could make it at least more fun. It was quite unfortunate that the director and co-writer Ben Falcone was not able to bring out all the fun here. (Falcone is McCarthy's husband and together they have made several movies like The Boss, Superintelligence and few others with mixed results). So if you want to give it a try, you are welcome to do so, though you have to manage your expectation of having great time.

Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars