My expectations were pretty low going into Thunder Force, I mean it’s called Thunder Force, what do you expect?
The plot is okay enough, it does feel like a setup for a Chuck Lorre sitcom where they take one joke and just keep running with it. The joke here being middle aged overweight women become superheroes.
Like I said, it’s fine. You don’t really expect much out of it anyway, except for maybe a few laughs along the way.
That’s kind of how low the bar is for me at this point.
Thankfully I did get a few chuckles out of a couple of scenes. Unlike say Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, the newest comedy I’ve seen other than Thunder Force.
Maybe because I saw Barb and Star first, really anything will seem like an improvement.
A big indicator to me that this might be bad, was the fact this was directed and not to mention written by Melissa McCarthy’s husband, who doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to these movies.
Movies like…
Tammy, The Boss, Life of the Party and most recently directing the… I want to say Apple+ movie Superintelligence.
If by chance you were wondering, no. None of those films are worth talking about. Out of the four I listed, I would… if you yank my arm, would say Superintelligence is the best. However I’m not sure it counts as he didn’t write it.
Out of the ones he himself has written, Thunder Force is in the lead. That doesn’t mean it isn’t plagued with issues. A lot of the issues for me was the budget, as we hear about how the city if filled with super villain called Miscreants.
In this world, those who are psychopaths are susceptible to getting superhuman abilities. The police do what they can, but with murderous psychos with superpowers, it’s too much to handle.
The issue with the budget comes in when your movie about suped up villain are limited to three. Yeah, not a wide range here. You get lady who shoots lightning bolts from her hands, guy with crab arms and dude whose eyes glow red and has super strength.
To set this story up, we start with Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer’s characters as children.
Octavia Spencer’s character Emily is incredibly smart, her friend Lydia however is not. Emily has one goal in life and that’s to give normal humans the ability to fight back against the Miscreants.
Being so goal driven does however eventually lead to the two bestfriends going their separate ways.
It’s now many years later and Lydia has gone on to work the docks, playing her typical one of two characters Melissa McCarthy usually plays, the butch kind of slobbish buffoon.
Emily on the other hand has started her multi million dollar company.
It’s that time again for a class reunion and Lydia is really hoping Emily makes it, as the last time they spoke it was them yelling at each other when they were teens.
The first laugh I got out of the film was the guy Melissa McCarthy’s character meets at the reunion who could never tell a joke as a teen, but now wanting to impress her tries telling her a joke, but keeps screwing up the punchline.
There really wasn’t much to this character, he was only there for a single joke and he never shows up again, so…
But it still managed to get a laugh out of me.
Upset Emily didn’t make it to the reunion, Lydia goes to visit her at her company, where surprisingly, she’s let up to see the boss lady.
While waiting, Lydia stumbles around and finds herself in a lab where she accidentally doses herself with one of the special abilities meant for Emily herself.
Angry at her but too late to change the process, Emily decides Lydia should take the rest of the treatments to help give her super human strength.
Emily on the other hand is taking a pill for invisibility.
One thing I found funny but also damn gross was the fact Lydia can’t eat normal food now, she has to suck down raw chicken. It’s maybe the only reoccurring bit in this that always got a laugh out of me.
Don’t worry, I won’t keep listing everything that made me laugh, even though we’re about done with that list.
Now that they have their powers, it’s time to use them against some criminal Miscreants.
Robbing a gas station with his crew is The Crab, played by Jason Bateman. Though he mostly just goes by Jerry. They call him The Crab mainly because he has crab arms.
There’s this instant attraction between him and Lydia. The Thunder Force, a name Lydia and Emily thought up for their hero team, make quick work of Jerry’s crew, but he manages to slip away.
The one pulling the strings is the Mayor calling himself The King. He too is secretly a Miscreant. His goal is to frighten everyone in the city with his use of other super powered criminals into voting for him.
It isn’t the strongest motivation, and I’m not completely sure it really makes a whole lotta sense but whatever.
He also loves killing his own henchmen until he has no one left, so the guy doesn’t have the best decision making skills in the first place.
But both The Crab and Laser work for The King. Laser is bloodthirsty, while Jerry is more clear headed. A man with crab arms doesn’t have a ton of job opportunities, so evil henchman it is.
The King’s plan doesn’t seem to be working now that Thunder Force is in town, even losing the election.
To show no ill will, The King throws a fancy party, planning on blowing it up.
Jerry and Lydia go on a date, where he spills the beans on The King’s plan.
Rushing to stop the bomb from going off, the two sides battle it out, Jerry gets his crab arms pulled off and Lydia jumps into the river holding the bomb, taking the force of the explosion.
Don’t worry, she lives. I know everyone reading this was pretty worried.
Then the movie just kind of ends. Lydia and Jerry start dating, both having weird raw chicken fetishes.
Not the worst I’ve seen from Melissa McCarthy or her director husband. I give it a RENT. I don’t think you’ll end up hating it, but if you do, I understand.
I mostly just saw it as a harmless, dumb movie that managed to get a few laughs out of me. In my book that’s a win.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about Bloody Hell.
You should know right away if this is something you’d be into just by watching the trailer. If you’re like me and a fan of horror comedies, this is a film you can’t pass up. As it successfully manages to delivers both. If you’re a fan of this genre you know how much of a rare thing that is to find.
That’s why I love finding rare gems like this, as you never expect it to happen, but when it does…
It also does something that I really enjoy in horror films and that’s have our bad guys go up against someone even worse.
And oh boy did these cannibals piss off the wrong dude.
Let’s get into! I will say now that this review does contain spoilers. So, if you do plan of seeing this movie, which I highly recommend you do, maybe save this review for a later time when you’ve watched the movie.
The plot is pretty simple, introducing us to a largely likable lead Rex. We first meet him waiting in line at the bank to talk to the girl he likes Maddy, but when their flirting gets interrupted by a bunch of bank robbers, Rex takes matters into his own hands.
So here is the thing about Rex. He’s secretly insane. He has kind of a split personality, one that handles all the tough shit normal Rex can’t handle. Think of him as the Drop Dead Fred of psychotic personalities.
Rex wants to save his girlfriend, while other Rex just wants to shoot people in the dick with a shotgun.
Enjoying the small killing spree, taking out all the bank robbers but one, Rex accidentally gets a bank teller killed.
That accident results in him going to prison for 8 long years.
He’s kind of famous now, split on if the public sees him as a murder or a savior.
Not wanting all this attention, he decides to fly to Finland to start his life over.
Unfortunately, a Finnish family has other plans for him, as they gas him and hang him up in their cellar. To make things even worse, he wakes up missing a foot.
At this point we already know what’s going on, but it’s fun to see him trying to figure out why’d they only take a single foot and not an organ they could sell for a pretty penny on the black market.
There’s also some really great stuff of him arguing with his other personality, even keeping him from screaming out in pain, as it would alert to everyone in the house that he’s awake.
They both try to figure a way out of this situation, but are unable to untie the ropes hanging him from the ceiling.
That’s when little Olli shows up, the youngest of our cannibals. He’s curious about tonight’s dinner, getting tricked by Rex to come closer.
Also a part of this strange family is Alia. She hates her family and has done nothing but try to escape them for years. She’s very protective of Olli, hoping the rest of her family doesn’t corrupt him.
When Alia goes down into the cellar, she sees Olli in a headlock by Rex, ready to snap his neck with his legs.
But that plan doesn’t exactly work out as his hands are bound and is missing a foot.
However, it’s kind of love at first sight for the both of them, giving Rex a knife to help free his hands.
I guess I forgot to mention that Bloody Hell is in fact a love story.
Ever since Maddy, the girl from the bank, who broke up with him in prison, Rex has been down in the dumps when it comes to love.
Now enter Allia and all that has changed. All he wants to do or should I say, all his other personality wants to do is break free and kill her whole family.
Though to be fair, normal Rex kind of wants to do that as well.
When Rex breaks Olli’s nose, Allia blames it on him falling out of bed, getting the rest of her family out of the house.
But when they learn Allia lied, they send the two older brothers and their uncle to check on things at the house.
Rex does manage to get himself free, killing the uncle first, the one who drugged him and took him to this house of nightmares.
I’m also pretty sure he’s the one that sawed off his foot, as when Rex wakes up after getting drugged yet gain, the uncle is taking the saw to his other leg.
After freeing himself and killing the uncle, Rex now has to figure out a way to defend himself. With a scene right out of From Dusk Til Dawn, Rex goes through all the discarded junk from all their previous victims.
He finds a knife and even a flare gun.
He also manages to slap together this makeshift prosthetic leg made out of a taped on golf club.
Now that everyone who can stop him is either dead or not at home, Rex fights with his self on if he should just leave or not, debating if Allia is worth it.
Thankfully, he makes up his mind, sticking around.
Whenever Allia misbehaves, her family puts her in a cage in the kitchen, the same place her family has gathered to debate what they should do next, knowing Rex has escaped.
They don’t get too far into the topic before Rex murders the father and one of the sons with a nailgun.
He also managed to put the knife he found to some good use as he throws it into the other twin’s head.
That just leaves mom, who gets a face full of leg club.
Allia however is the one to finish her off.
So now you might be thinking, what drove this family to become cannibals? Well, that would have to do with Peti, the monstrous man baby that only has the hunger for human flesh.
He’s the only one that gives Rex a bit of a challenge, only going down once Rex is reunited hilariously with his own foot, ramming it into Peti’s skull.
I know I’m spoiling everything, but it’s hard not wanting to shout to the rooftops on how great I thought this movie was.
I even loved the ending where him and Allia are together in America, Rex telling friends how they met. You think, oh I’m sure he’ll gloss over a few of the details, only to have him blurt out. So then I murdered her entire family and we’ve been together ever since.
Perfect ending!
Bloody Hell is a SEE IT! It’s smart, well written, funny, has likable characters that you want to see succeed, the gore is there but it isn’t too over the top. It really isn’t like any movie I’ve seen.
I really hope you check it out and end up loving it as much as I did.
This time for sure I’ll be back with Mortal Kombat.
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