In a real world where indicators of racism, sexism, and fatphobia have become way more obvious to everyone in the last few years, most mainstream superhero media is still struggling to catch up, but Thunder Force is setting the new tone.

Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer are childhood-friends-to-grown-ups in a fictional world where criminals have become superheros, or as the film regularly refers to them, “super persons” (thank you for the non-binary gender term!)

We first meet McCarthy and Spencer as teens, and just when I started to roll my eyes like “oh, here we go, another story about a teenage girl being mean to a fellow teenage girl”...they actually support one another and become friends.  Wait!  Females can be friends now? 10 points right off the bat because I’m so sick of seeing women being mean to each other in media. 

The Pros:

• McCarthy and Spencer are friends from the start.  No girl-against-girl tropes here, thaaaaaank you.  

• We finally have two strong female roles where the black actress does not have a scene where she has to pep talk the white actress about how great she is.

• I did not pick up on a SINGLE FAT JOKE.  Pour one out for this movie.  

• Normalizing gay dads, lesbian love, and dating transgender is done without the bat of an eyelash

• The romantic scenes in the movie are ridiculous.  You had me at 80’s dance fantasy.  

• It’s the little things.  There’s countless moments in this film where they could have chosen a different word or another reaction and it would have hurt someone in the name of a cheap laugh....but they took the high road.  This is how all movies should be nowadays.  

The Cons:

• There are many plotholes.  On election night, the evil mayoral candidate has no campaign team watching.  Hey, I read Becoming by Michelle Obama, I know how election nights work now!

• The super person outfits are bad.  Like, a cross between a codpiece and a pleated skirt bad.  Also, their alter ego names could use some work.  

• I’m undecided whether it’s a thing that the black heroine is also a single mom.  On one hand, it’s clearly to make the plotline simple, on the other hand, I feel like having a single black mom character is that unconscious bias we’ve all been learning about?  Feel free to leave your thoughts below in the comments.

But the main reason I LOVED this movie?  Neither of the leading actresses loses weight to become super.  They are human as plus-size women.  They become heroines as plus-size women.  They fight evil as plus-size women.  There’s never any talk of eating a healthier diet or getting in shape.  It’s like when Thor fought as a fat man in the final Avengers: Endgame, except these actresses are actually fat and got to play fat characters.  Again..thaaaaaaank youuuuuu.  

This movie isn’t perfect, but I enjoyed it because it represents progress and it’s fun.  Thunder Force is the super person movie we all needed, and I’m here for it. 

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