Thanks to his role as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thor, Chris Hemsworth has been one of the most recognizable stars on the planet for the last decade. However, serious questions have been asked about his leading man credentials outside of his comic book comfort zone, and with good reason.
The success of Netflix’s Extraction has at least given him a secondary franchise to fall back on, but much of his filmography makes for dire reading. Snow White and the Huntsman was a success, but Hemsworth ascended to top billing for sequel Winter’s War, which flopped. In fact, there’s an alarming number of non-MCU projects where he’s headlined the cast to disastrous results.
Michael Mann’s Blackhat? Bomb. Ron Howard’s In the Heart of the Sea? Bomb. Men in Black: International? Bomb. Even ensemble pieces Ghostbusters and Bad Times at the El Royale performed poorly. That brings us nicely onto 12 Strong, the action-packed war drama that can currently be found nestled comfortably in Hulu’s Top 10 most-watched list, as per FlixPatrol.
A middling $70 million box office haul and a bang average Rotten Tomatoes score of 50% neatly sums up the mediocrity on display. The movie does have its moments, though, and they’ve clearly been enough to enrapture Hulu subscribers this week.