It’s hard to believe that another year has come to an end. In some ways, it was like I blinked and 2021 was over. Starting out in another lockdown (which definitely impacted my maintaining this blog) was rough, but then halfway through, movie theatres opened up again. Nothing will ever beat walking into that large auditorium, settling into those chairs and buckling in for a life changing journey.
2021 brought many great films that certainly made making this list a difficult task. Some I forgot along the way. Some made themselves known to me more recently. And others I wish I could erase from my memory all together. There are also a few that I think I generously rated, but what can you do?
So without further ado, here are my top 5 best and worst of the year.
I am not a fan of Melissa McCarthy so I don’t know why I watched this. Spoiler alert: it was bad. I didn’t have a good feeling about it going in, but somehow that didn’t stop me. I wanted to give Thunder Force a chance. I should have listened to my gut feeling telling me to run far, far away. Instead I wasted two hours of my life. I sacrificed myself so that you wouldn’t have to. You’re welcome.
Picture a world where villains have been wrecking havoc on humans for years. Emily Stanton (Octavia Spencer) has dedicated her whole life devising a plan to get revenge on the ‘Miscreants’ that killed her parents when she was a child. Together with the help of her estranged friend Lydia Berman (Melissa McCarthy), they team up to become Thunder Force, a superhero duo who will stop at nothing to achieve Emily’s dream and save the world.
I have to admit that the movie did actually start off on a promising note. I liked the backstory on Emily and her parents as well as how she became friends with Lydia. The two were so different, but had great chemistry and meshed well together. It wasn’t until they had a fight and decided to go their separate ways that it all went downhill for me. I couldn’t’ really get back on board afterwards.
I did not find the movie funny at all. I like a very particular sense of humor and this was not it. At times, it was as if the jokes were trying too hard and they all fell flat. I have also noticed that the projects created by Ben Falcone and which star his wife Melissa McCarthy never tend to do well. I don’t know who keeps green lighting them to get made. I also, for the life of me, cannot understand why Octavia Spencer would star in something like this. That woman is a queen and she seemed very out of place here.
While the title has an impressive line up of side characters in Jason Bateman as The Crab, Bobby Cannavale as The King, Pom Klementieff as Laser, Melissa Leo as Allie and Taylor Mosby as Emily’s daughter Tracy, they couldn’t do anything to save it.
Overall, I really did try to give Thunder Force a fair shot. Unfortunately, going forward, I will stick to my initial instincts and continue to skip out on the Falcone/McCarthy team ups.
Credits Rolling 