Mccarthy, Spencer make for weak duo in ‘Thunder Force’
It is a comedy, and the joke is that two middleaged women — played by Melissa Mccarthy and Octavia Spencer — are the ones with the superpowers
It’s impossible to take “Thunder Force” seriously because “Thunder Force” doesn’t take itself seriously. Not that this superhero comedy is meant to be taken as a straighforward exercise in good vs. evil. It’s a comedy, and the joke is that two middle-aged women — played by Melissa Mccarthy and Octavia Spencer — are the ones with the superpowers. OK, fine. The issue here is the inherent laziness of the storytelling, the humor and the entire enterprise. There’s never a feeling that anything is at stake, and it makes it impossible to invest any emotions into it. In short, there’s no rumble in this “Thunder.” Blame writer-director Ben Falcone, in his fith directorial teaming with Mccarthy, his wife. Their partnershipshaveyieldedmccarthy’sleastrewarding film efforts to date, from 2014’s “Tammy” through to last year’s dreary “Superintelligence.” It’s clear they’re comfortable working together, and good for them, the world could use more workplace happiness. But that comfort is a crutch, and it isn’t pushing either party in positive creative directions.
Mccarthy plays Lydia, a blue-collar worker in Chicago who wears Slayer T-shirts more than she doesn’t. ( Mccarthy doesn’t make for a very convincing Slayer fan, but that’s another story.) Lydia’s estranged childhood best friend, Emily (Oscar-winner Spencer) went on to become a top-level scientist who dedicated her life to avenging the death of her parents, who were killed by Miscreants, a race of supervillains created by a freak radioactive occurrence. Emily has come up with a secret formula to turn everyday humans into superheroes to combat the baddies.
Welp, it isn’t long before the bumbling Lydia accidentally injects herself with Emily’s formula and is on her way to becoming a crime fighter with super strength. Emily reluctantly joins her, taking pills to gain the power of invisibility. And once fully trained, they set off to take on the Miscreants, led by a politician who calls himself the King (Bobby Cannavale) and a half-crab, half-man with a droll sense of humor (Jason Bateman).
These plot elements are presented in extremely lackadaisical scenarios and within a structure where jokes are told, then repeated, then explained and told again, a detached form of humor deconstruction that begs the question, if something isn’t funny the first time, is it funny the fourth? In one scene, Lydia compares Emily’s daughter, Tracy (Taylor Mosby) to “Family Maters’” Steve Urkel, and when Tracy doesn’t understand the reference, Emily goes on to impersonate Urkel and repeats the “did I do that?” line five times. And what doesn’t work once does not magically work on the fith go-round. “Thunder Force” is full of these types of situations and joke breakdowns, as if Falcone isn’t confident enough to actually tell a joke, but would rather make fun of the idea of telling a joke. It’s the same thing with “Thunder Force” as a whole: It’s like it doesn’t believe in telling a superhero story, it would rather make fun of the idea of telling a superhero story.