A few sporadic chuckles aside, it's fair to say frequent collaborators and real-life couple Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy don't have the best track record, but Thunder Force might be their most underwhelming effort yet.
In Netflix's superhero comedy, McCarthy plays against type as a kind-hearted slob named Lydia who reunites with estranged bestie Emily (Octavia Spencer) after several years. Ever since her parents were killed by Miscreants (naturally mutated sociopaths... it's all in the intro) Emily's been working on a formula to give normal people super-powers in order to combat the villains, and Lydia winds up becoming her unwilling test subject.
The serum gives Lydia super-strength, Emily gains the power of invisibility, and together they form the dynamic duo known as Thunder Force.
It's not exactly an original premise - even for a superhero spoof - but that wouldn't have mattered if it brought the laughs. Unfortunately, Falcone's film is painfully unfunny and soon becomes a chore to sit through.
Lydia falls over, gets hit in the crotch, says stupid/obnoxious things, has diarrhoea, falls over some more. It's the same witless, hackneyed attempts at humor we've seen time and time again, and pretty much every gag (Jason Bateman raises a few smirks as a crab-clawed baddie) misses the mark completely.
When it's not trying to be funny, Thunder Force attempts to tug on the heartstrings as the heroes renew their friendship and Lydia bonds with Emily's nerd (sorry... she's not a nerd, she's smart, and there's a difference) daughter, but it's the usual mawkish nonsense that should have anyone over the age of 11 cringing in their seats.
McCarthy is a great talent and can be very funny when she has stronger material to work with, but she's clearly content to basically trot out the same character over and over for her husband's increasingly awful scripts. We just ask that they leave Spencer out of their evil machinations next time.
Thunder Force is about what you'd expect from a Ben Falcone movie starring Melissa McCarthy, and being overly mean or vindictive about what amounts to a knowingly goofy family film seems unnecessary. So, let's just say it's unwatchable rubbish and leave it at that.