Thunder Force may have been met with mixed reviews, but Netflix’s superhero spoof did parody one silly superhero trope that Spider-Man originally popularised. Released in April 2021, the Melissa McCarthy-starring superhero spoof Thunder Force marks the actor’s fifth collaboration with director husband Ben Falcone. Unfortunately for fans of the pair, Thunder Force joins both The Boss and The Life of the Party in earning mixed-to-negative reviews upon release.
Starring McCarthy as Lydia, a likable slacker, and Octavia Spencer as Emily, her estranged schoolfriend who accidentally grants both of the pair superpowers, Thunder Force takes parodic aim at the superhero craze that is currently dominating blockbuster cinema. Unfortunately, the movie arrives after everything from The Boys and The Tick, to Birdgirl, to Invincible all spoofed superheroes recently (with varying degrees of darkness), meaning its takes on the genre's tropes are far from fresh according to most reviewers.
As a result, Thunder Force has been largely dismissed by critics as a lazy action-comedy that fails to conjure up much in the way of laughs or thrills. However, Thunder Force does manage to spoof one inexplicable superhero convention that survived despite the self-referential meta-humor that the MCU and its imitators have added to recent comic adaptations. For decades now, the question of how and why Peter Parker refuses to tell his guardian Aunt May that he is Spider-Man has been a plot hole that plagues fans of the franchise. The idea that May would still not know and that Peter refuses to tell her for some reason is goofy at best and an annoying Spider-Man plot hole at worst. As such, it is satisfying to see Thunder Force subvert this unlikely plot contrivance.
One of the most unsustainable and unrealistic plot points of Spider-Man's journey has always been that, no matter what has happened, the otherwise-relatable character has refused to tell his Aunt May about his secret identity as Spider-Man in virtually all his comic book runs. Considering that May isn’t portrayed as being unintelligent or incurious, it is more than a little insulting to the character that she hasn’t worked out Peter’s secret, and it is bizarre that he opts not to tell when there’s no reason to think her knowing his identity would endanger her. It's a frustrating plot hole, so it is good to see Thunder Force subvert this trope with the scene wherein Emily’s grandmother is offended to discover that the pair of superheroes don’t think she already worked out their identities.
In the clever parody, McCarthy’s Lydia and Emily go to Emily's grandma's house, working up the courage to tell her that they are the eponymous superhero team Thunder Force on the way. Emily’s grandmother immediately replies that she already knows before then scoffing at the idea that she wouldn't have figured it out. In the age of TV and social media, Emily’s grandmother is right that any even-remotely-realistic superhero movie would have to address the implausibility of maintaining a secret double life as a world-famous hero, and the scene makes for a refreshing moment that upends the silly trope of not telling family and loved ones about superhero identities no matter what. Unfortunately, it’s one of too few such clever scenes in Thunder Force, a superhero parody that might have fared better with audiences if it had arrived at a time of less intense competition in the crowded field of superpower spoofs.