Critics have not been kind to married actor/director pairing Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone’s five films that the pair have made together, but how do the Thunder Force collaborators' collaborations rank in terms of quality? Despite viewers loving the duo’s hilarious interplay in the 2011 hit Bridesmaids, actor Melissa McCarthy and her frequent director/real-life husband Ben Falcone have been unable to find critical success with the five movies that they have collaborated on in recent years.
2014’s Tammy started the pair’s cold streak, which has since continued to include the critically hated The Boss in 2016, the slightly less maligned Life of the Party two years later, and the one-two punch of high-concept rom-com Super Intelligence and superhero spoof Thunder Force in 2020 and 2021 respectively. The reception of McCarthy and Falcone's movies ranges from woeful to passable, but none of the couple’s collaborations have yet received a positive reception.
Some of the criticisms leveled at the pair’s collaborations are more than fair, as The Boss proves throughout its runtime. However, there are hints of promise in their first collaboration during the goofier, more gonzo moments of Tammy, which imply that a less aggressively mainstream style of comedy could suit the duo better. However, later outings like Thunder Force and Super Intelligence have seen Falcone and McCarthy double down on the broad appeal, family-friendly side of comedy, rather than taking a more subversive, outre route, a choice that seems designed to recreate the financial success of Adam Sandler’s later movies — and has instead earned them reviews as bad as Sandler’s recent outings.
5. The Boss (2016)
Despite boasting the always-welcome presence of Frozen heroine Kirsten Bell, The Boss is the most wholly regrettable of Falcone and McCarthy’s collaborations. Centering on a billionaire businesswoman who loses everything and must acclimate to everyday life (while mostly avoiding prison), The Boss fails to win over audiences mainly because the lead character, Michelle Darnell, isn’t absurd enough for her plight to be amusing. It is no surprise to learn Will Ferrell was a producer on The Boss, as the movie features many of the same issues as 2015’s Get Hard — namely, that seeing a much-loved comedy star play a uber-rich "antihero" only works when the character in question is over-the-top and absurd like Ferrell and Adam McKay's comedic creation Ron Burgundy, where The Boss and Get Hard’s protagonists are merely unlikeable and unpleasant, and all-too-believably so.
4. Life of the Party (2018)
Life of the Party represents a big step up from The Boss and is far from being as hard to watch as the 2016 movie. Here, McCarthy stars as a divorced woman who returns to college to complete her degree and ends up becoming, as the title implies, a hard-drinking, hard-partying frat movie heroine. It’s a fun role for McCarthy and a strong supporting cast including Modern Family’s Julie Bowen, Maya Rudolph, and Community’s Gillian Jacobs make this college comedy watchable. However, it’s hard not to wonder what raunchy, R-rated extremes the movie’s premise could have been taken to by the director of Bridesmaids or Neighbors, and Falcone’s choice to play it safe means that Life of the Party never reaches its full potential despite McCarthy’s admirable efforts.
3. Thunder Force (2021)
Thunder Force is a superhero spoof that sees McCarthy’s slacker heroine accidentally receive superpowers thanks to an accident involving her estranged former friend (played by Ma’s Octavia Spencer, McCarthy’s real-life former roommate). The movie earns some laughs thanks to the easy chemistry between McCarthy and Spencer, Thunder Force's gags poking fun at superhero tropes, and Arrested Development star Jason Bateman’s scene-stealing turn as Jerry (aka The Crab). However, while the pair is a fun and funny duo, Thunder Force doesn’t give Spencer and McCarthy a lot to do in their respective roles, and despite having a complicated premise involving plentiful supervillains but no superheroes, the movie doesn’t have anything new to say about superhero media. At a time when The Boys, Invincible, and Birdgirl are all deconstructing the tropes and themes of superheroes, Thunder Force is a passable but forgettable superhero comedy that plays proceedings regrettably straight outside of a few funny subversions. The movie also misses out on the top spot as it makes the same fatal flaw as Super Intelligence and 2016’s Ghostbusters reboot, casting McCarthy as an everywoman instead of the zany lunatic she excels as. It is a small but important mistake that elevates one of Falcone and McCarthy's movies above the rest despite its flaws.
2. Super Intelligence
Of all the duo’s collaborations, it is Super Intelligence alone that could reasonably be called “underrated,” mostly because the movie went under the radar upon its release. A bizarre mashup of rom-com cuteness and Terminator-inspired “what if the machines attacked” sci-fi, Superintelligence sees a supercomputer demand an answer to whether humanity’s continued existence can be justified from McCarthy’s everywoman heroine. If that sounds like the setup for a ponderous pseudo-philosophical outing, rest assured that the movie is not attempting to be Ex Machina. Instead, the James Corden-voiced AI erases McCarthy’s student debt and drops a serious sum into her bank account before pressing her on the issue of annihilating the human race, allowing Super Intelligence to have some fun as a wish-fulfillment comedy and a sweet rom-com with Vinyl’s Bobby Cannavale as McCarthy’s love interest before the sci-fi stuff takes over in the final act. While unspectacular, it is an agreeable movie that features none of the grating moments that can make the pair’s lesser films a cringe-inducing watch at times.
1. Tammy
The earliest of Falcone and McCarthy’s five collaborations, Tammy was met with critical revulsion upon release, like many of the Adam Sandler "man-child is forced to grow up movies" it is influenced by. However, while the movie may not come near the dadaist extremes of Tom Green’s cult classic Freddy Got Fingered, there is an argument to be made that this unhinged outing is the couple’s best movie thus far thanks to its chaotic energy. The eponymous Tammy Banks is a human maelstrom of bad luck and frustration, and McCarthy is as well-suited to the demands of the role as Susan Sarandon is to playing her sardonic grandmother Pearl. The supporting cast is an impressive lineup that includes the always-superb Kathy Bates, Gary Cole (no stranger to this style of comedy thanks to a similar role in Talladega Nights), Mark Duplass, and Sandra Oh. While Tammy doesn’t soar to the comic heights McCarthy is capable of, it’s a raw, rude, and funny movie whose loose, improv-friendly tone and goofy crude humor make it Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone's best collaboration so far.