Thunder Force
NETFLIX
Four screenwriting credits and five directing nods is more than enough to fashion out competency or consistency. For writer and director, Ben Falcone, he has yet to address the core issues of his filmmaking. They touch upon the same few narrative tones, a handful of dud jokes and segments of recurring, infantile supporting characters. They always star Melissa McCarthy. None of these collaborations have yet to succeed in any real, artistic merit, nor have they tickled the fancy of many comedy-loving audience members. Thunder Force is no different, but dragging along the corpse of parody, looks to cash in on whatever remains of the Marvel and DC pie.
Lydia (McCarthy) and Emily Stanton (Octavia Spencer) have been acquainted since their early days in school. Thunder Force rushes through a five-year friendship from birth to death in a mere seven minutes. That is certainly record time for establishing these two boring leads, and as soon as the steady, comfortable riffs of a long-forgotten AC/DC track hit the film, we are already sliding rapidly down the quality hill. Along with especially dated CGI, the lack of flair Falcone has for action is worrying. Blurry, blue lasers are fired from the hands of a miscreant, the generic name plastered on a gang of villains that terrorise the streets of the city. With those two friends reuniting some years later (who knows how long, for the ‘X years later...’ trope is ditched almost as soon as it appears), it is, of course, up to them to avenge the dead parents of one and carve out a future for the other.
If Falcone is hoping to show how humdrum and bleak Lydia's life is, then he does a great job of displaying this through his direction. His shots have no grace or meaning. The camera merely pans from place to place without the suggestion of artistry. There is a staggered, horrifyingly lengthy scene where a character, whose only significant detail is a knack for botched knock-knock jokes, tries to explain a knock-knock joke about an owl. This is the standard set for the comedy, or at least, there is a sense that this is supposed to be funny. Falcone has taken a dark, disgruntled plunge into not knowing where his jokes are meant to lie. Could that be because they were not funny to begin with? Probably, yes. Jason Bateman and Bobby Cannavale cannot save this script, no matter how dedicated they are to working through Thunder Force without bursting into tears or kicking a hole in the wall of these stagnant, boring sets.
Parody is never a good genre, meme culture killed that a decade ago. Even before that, though, the likes of Epic Movie and Scary Movie were doing well enough to take the genre to an extreme it would never return from. While Thunder Force is the usual humdrum, heartless, cookie-cutter dregs of another dying genre, it is worrying how little Falcone has to offer as an artist. His repetitive lack of style and consistently dull tone are not something that will win over audiences who are on the fence about his work. They are sickening. His films are lame ducks, all of them. Up until now, spectators did not have to view this content, but no longer are they safe. Plastered on the front of Netflix, but a film that should not be viewed by any sane soul or pursuer of quality.