Thunder Force

I had no idea what to expect from this film because I love superhero films but I'm not a Melissa McCarthy fan. Unpopular opinion I know but I have never once found her funny or liked any of her comedies and I'm afraid that is still the case.

Starting with the positives and believe me there's no many, I really like the concept to this film and with the beginnings elaborate backstory, there's some interesting world building that could potentially be explored with a sequel or a remake.

Also I like the costumes both our leads wear, nothing major but the costumes just look cool and Octavia Spencer has a couple of one liners that made me smirk.

Well that's the positives out of the way. Now it's time for the negatives and the biggest problem with this film is it is not as fun as it should be. With the team and lead actresses, I'm wondering if there was any behind the scenes issues because for whatever reason, the cast feel like they're holding back a lot and it just doesn't feel as fun as it could or should be.

And once again, I didn't enjoy Melissa McCarthy in this film. I just don't think she's a funny actress. She's a good actress when it comes to dramatic performances but just not when it comes to comedic. But to my surprise, despite her funny one liners, I didn't think Octavia Spencer was that good in this film either and it fuels my suspicions that there were behind the scenes issues and maybe McCarthy and Spencer didn't get along because I didn't feel any comedic chemistry between them, Octavia Spencer doesn't look like she's enjoying herself in the film. You can't even buy them as friends and if there weren't any issues, then I don't know whether to blame their performances or the director.

But what absolutely kills this film and puts in my bottom 5 of the year is the horrific excuse for comedy. This film is not funny in the slightest. All it has is cliched jokes we've seen before done better in other films or really disgusting overused running gags like McCarthys character being forced to eat raw chicken which is just a ridiculous excuse for so called comedy.

This film would have benefited much more if it was a comedy spoof on the superhero genre where it makes fun of the cliches and trademarks of the superhero genre but does it in a respectful way and instead we get lazy comedy executed even worse.

Also the action in this film is very bland and whenever we see hand to hand combat, it's horribly edited. Again this would have been good as a spoof and had a great opportunity for comedy but it really misses the mark.

Unfortunately, this is not a good film at all. I really didn't like it, it's not funny and it's a waste of your time so I really wouldn't recommend it. I do hope Melissa McCarthy does more dramatic roles in the future because I think she's good in those roles. Just not comedies.

⭐

Godzilla Vs Kong

This was my most anticipated movies of the year because I just loved the idea of Godzilla and King Kong fighting one another filmed with modern day CGI and technology. I did have some worries but at the same time, I wanted to stay positive.  Now as I go into this, I'm not sure if there's any way I can be completely spoiler free, particularly when I get to the negatives but I'll try my best not to reveal too much.

Starting with the positives, easily the best thing about this film is action itself. The action scenes are absolutely mesmerizing to watch and so creative at times. It's so fun seeing Kong swinging around big citys and see these two icons just smashing each other and causing destruction.

This film is also a technical achievement with pretty much anything else throughout it's runtime. The production is outstanding, the CGI and visuals are incredible and look so real, this film even features a lot of colour correcting which is used very well and very efficiently. It must have been so hard for the creative team to create all of these visuals and not once does it all look fake.

The creature designs as well are fantastic to look at. Obviously Godzilla and King but there are some other creatures in this film and they look incredible. This film really knows how to use its budget to its advantage.

And finally the cast are really great in this film. Now the characters I'll be talking about later on but the cast do a fantastic job with what they are given.

Moving onto the mixed aspect now and the only thing that comes to mind is I think this film would have warranted better if there was a Kong sequel made before this film. The opening 30 minutes has a lot of gap and details to fill in and I feel if a sequel to the first Kong film was made and this film starts where that film ended, it would have made this film a lot better.

Also the ending may strike up some debate; some people may feel satisfied by the end of the film whereas others may feel disappointed and feel the film went for a safe ending.

Now we have to move onto the negatives now and unfortunately I did have some issues with this film and I will try my best to refrain from spoiler territory. Now Godzilla and King Kong get plenty of screen time individually, but together they only have like a limited amount of screentime and I blame that on the script. The script to this film features more of the human characters screentime than Godzilla and Kong combined and that is frustrating when you want to see Godzilla and Kong beating the crap out of each other. The final half an hour is when this is peak Godzilla Vs Kong and for me, that should have been a lot earlier.

This film also follows the same template to Batman v superman to a certain degree, especially when you get the to the 3rd act and it's very transparent at how similar it feels.

Another big issue I had, and this will not be very surprising either, are the human characters. As much as I love and enjoy the cast to this film, their characters are not as entertaining. In fact when they appear, it makes the film feel like it's dragging on. They are either boring and one dimensional or just under developed and not interesting at all.

And finally this film feels like it forgets what happened during the past couple of films as certain previous plot elements are completely ignored and characters from another certain film aren't even mentioned or brought into this film.

So overall, whilst this film is easily the best technical film of the year so far, on a script and characters based story, I found it to be a bit of a disappointment.

⭐⭐⭐