The Thundermans have a problem, and it is a 72-minute one. In Clash of the Thundermans, Chloe Thunderman develops a destructive new superpower, and the Hero League responds by ordering her to an elite boarding school for superheroes to learn control of her abilities. That order splits the family in half.
Trailer, via Paramount Plus.
Phoebe and Barb Take Chloe Into Hiding
The premise is clean enough for a TV movie. Faced with sending Chloe away for years, Phoebe, Barb and Billy take her into hiding. Max, Hank and Nora track the rogue family members, and the two factions eventually face off in a full-on battle for the Thundermans’ future. The tagline promises “This changes everything.” It does not.
Trevor Kirschner directs from a script by Jed Spingarn, Sean William Cunningham and Marc Dworkin. The cast returns intact: Kira Kosarin as Phoebe, Jack Griffo as Max, Maya Le Clark as Chloe, Rosa Blasi as Barb, Chris Tallman as Hank, Diego Velazquez as Billy, Addison Riecke as Nora, Daniele Gaither as President Kickbutt, Ariel Winter as Cognita, and Dana Snyder as the voice of Dr. Colosso. Ben Van Huis plays The Replicator, with Piotr Michael handling the character’s voice.
Max and Hank Track the Rogue Family
Here is the running order the film actually keeps:
| Section | What happens |
|---|---|
| Opening | Chloe’s destructive new power surfaces |
| Inciting order | Hero League sends Chloe to boarding school |
| Split | Phoebe, Barb and Billy take Chloe into hiding |
| Pursuit | Max, Hank and Nora track the runaways |
| Climax | The two factions battle for the family’s future |
That is a functional structure, and the cast knows these roles. Kosarin and Griffo have played these siblings long enough that the standoff carries weight. Blasi and Tallman sell the parental divide. Le Clark has the hardest job — Chloe is the object of the fight more than a participant in it — and the script does not give her much to do beyond being the reason everyone else is angry.
A 72-Minute Movie With a Two-Hour Argument
The central conflict is a parenting argument dressed as a superhero plot. One side says send the dangerous child away to be trained. The other says keep her home. Neither side is written with enough conviction to make the choice genuinely hard, so the battle in the final act lands as noise rather than payoff. Clash of the Thundermans is listed as TV Movie, Family and Action, and it splits the difference between all three without committing to any.
“This changes everything.”
The tagline is the film’s own promise, and it is the promise the film breaks. Nothing here changes anything. The Hero League order is a device to force a split, the split is a device to force a fight, and the fight resolves back to roughly where the family started. For a series that has run this long, a story about whether the Thundermans stay together should feel like it costs something.
What works is the casting continuity and the speed. Seventy-two minutes is a lean runtime, and the film moves. What does not work is the stakes. The Replicator arrives as an antagonist with a name and a voice credit and little else, and President Kickbutt’s order never gets a real counterargument beyond parental feeling.
Clash of the Thundermans is not a bad night’s television. It is a thin one. The family at its center has earned better than a plot that treats sending a child away as a scheduling conflict.
4.7 of 10.
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