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PAGE 10 - WESTSIDE MESSENGER - <strong>April</strong> 18, <strong>2021</strong><br />
www.columbusmessenger.com<br />
In Entertainment<br />
Low brow humor in “under Force”<br />
I am going to begin this movie review with a visualization<br />
session. It will help you, the reader and potential<br />
movie watcher, determine your level of tolerance<br />
for icky and strange things done in the name of comedy.<br />
I want you to picture a plateful of chicken cutlets,<br />
boneless and skinless, to be exact. I don’t want you to<br />
think about the best way to prepare them in order to<br />
make it edible, just picture it as is. Now, I want you to<br />
envision someone shoveling those glistening bits of<br />
flesh into their gaping and gleeful maw, and then transition<br />
into watching that same person being delicately<br />
fed those unseasoned cuts during a romantic interlude<br />
with someone sporting crab claws in lieu of typical<br />
hands.<br />
If that short, albeit graphic, visualization session<br />
entirely grossed you out and did not elicit even a small,<br />
quizzical smile, I have to say that you might not be the<br />
right audience for “Thunder Force,” an absurdist<br />
superhero comedy now streaming on Netflix. However,<br />
if you were intrigued by its potential and don’t mind<br />
setting your brain to ‘entertained by very stupid<br />
things,’ this might be the right movie for you.<br />
Much like eating raw or undercooked meats, I had<br />
strong reservations about this film, even without the<br />
knowledge of the food humor/horror that lay within.<br />
Though its original form had a lot of appeal as it<br />
starred Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer in the<br />
superhero roles, it was the wording on the package<br />
that said “written and directed by Ben Falcone” that<br />
gave me the most pause.<br />
To be clear, I have nothing against Falcone. I have<br />
seen his live interviews and read plenty of his paper<br />
interviews and believe him to be a kind person, but I<br />
have also watched a majority of the films that he has<br />
written and/or directed and come away less than<br />
impressed. While they all have glimpses of promise,<br />
mostly because they feature his wife and national<br />
treasure Melissa McCarthy, overall, they are lacking<br />
in just about every other audio or visual area.<br />
Though the warning signs were there, I decided to<br />
proceed with “Thunder Force” because, frankly, I was<br />
in the mood to watch something dumb. And I have to<br />
say that it met my want for stupidity and yet it slightly<br />
exceeded my expectations because it wasn’t as disappointing<br />
as I thought it would be. Overall, I would say<br />
that is a vast improvement from his other properties.<br />
Or maybe it was just because my expectations were so<br />
low? A question to ponder.<br />
It begins as all superhero films do — with an origin<br />
story. It is the year 1983 and a massive pulse of interstellar<br />
cosmic rays have struck Earth. While a majority<br />
of the population was unaffected by this most<br />
unusual event, it exclusively granted powers to those<br />
exhibiting the traits of sociopaths. Needless to say, the<br />
following years have not been so great for the non-miscreants.<br />
Fast forward to present day and Emily Stanton<br />
(Spencer), a billionaire biotech genius who lost her parents<br />
in a miscreant attack, has developed a serum to<br />
give non-sociopaths powers to stop their deadly and<br />
destructive reign. But just when it seems that all of<br />
her plans to change the world are going according to<br />
plan, they get sidetracked by a bulldozing blast from<br />
the past.<br />
Out of the blue, Emily gets a text message from her<br />
ex-best friend Lydia Berman (McCarthy) who desperately<br />
wants her to attend their high school class<br />
reunion. Though she makes a promise to attend, she<br />
gets sidetracked with her studies and forgets the date.<br />
Much to her surprise, Lydia<br />
shows up at her high-rise complex<br />
in Chicago in order to take<br />
her there (Lydia does this with<br />
the hope that they will be able<br />
to repair their frazzled friendship)<br />
but things quickly go<br />
astray. According to Emily,<br />
Lydia has always been something of a disaster, a loyal<br />
friend to be sure, but someone who always wants to<br />
mess about where there are so many serious things<br />
going on. So, it really shouldn’t have been a surprise<br />
when she leaves Lydia unattended on the premises<br />
and comes back to find her strapped to the molecular<br />
changing machine and injected with the serum that<br />
gives people superpowers.<br />
Over the course of several weeks, Lydia undergoes<br />
a series of treatments and tests to monitor her growing<br />
abilities which include superstrength and a fierce<br />
jonesing for raw chicken. Watching her get that first<br />
taste of unmitigated protein, which is simultaneously<br />
orgasmic and repulsive to her, elicited a genuine<br />
laugh.<br />
With Lydia sequestered in this complex, and with<br />
Emily undergoing her own transformation to become<br />
invisible, one might think plenty of time would be<br />
given to them repairing their friendship and finding a<br />
way to become an effective force to battle the miscreants<br />
by using their own strengths and weaknesses.<br />
But no. Most is spent on repetitive scenes of Lydia’s<br />
treatments and tests, and repetitive jokes that don’t<br />
land the first, or the second, or the third time they are<br />
said.<br />
When the action finally gets underway, it doesn’t<br />
land that well either, especially with the way the fight<br />
scenes were staged. Falcone is not exactly adept at<br />
action choreography, even with “amateur superheroes”<br />
underfoot, and it shows.<br />
With the negative aspects of the above paragraphs,<br />
one might wonder what makes this film watchable, or<br />
even somewhat enjoyable. And to that I say it’s the<br />
heart between McCarthy and Spencer and the side<br />
characters which include a miscreant woman (Pom<br />
Klementieff) who blows things up with her hands, a<br />
“half-creant” named The Crab (Jason Bateman) and a<br />
would-be mayoral candidate (Bobby Cannavale) who<br />
moonlights as a decent person. With these three, you<br />
get the sharpest dialogue, the funniest puns, and great<br />
scenes of physical comedy, such as The Crab scuttling<br />
away during a gunfight.<br />
Were my brain not set in an ‘entertained by low<br />
brow humor’ kind of mood, I’m not sure I would have<br />
found much to like about “Thunder Force.” I mean,<br />
even at that setting I could see how much it could be<br />
improved had it leaned more fully on the absurdist<br />
humor. But still, it gave me quite a few laughs and I<br />
probably would watch it again given a chance. And<br />
that is more than I can say about some of Falcone’s<br />
other theatrical attempts.<br />
Grade: C+<br />
The Reel Deal<br />
Dedra Cordle<br />
Dedra Cordle is a <strong>Messenger</strong> staff writer and columnist.
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