MAX STEEL
DIRECTOR: Stewart Hendler
CAST: Ben Winchell, Josh Brener, Ana Villafane, Andy Garcia, Maria Bello, Billy Slaughter
CLASSIFICATION: PG 13
RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes
RATING: 1 star (out of 5)
FRANK SCHECK
Even tweens may find themselves underwhelmed by the new live-action film based on what – for many of them – may be their favourite Mattel action figure. Delivering a bland cinematic origin story which seems calculated to boost Christmas toy sales, Max Steel is a stillborn, would-be franchise starter.
The story revolves around 16-year-old Max McGrath (Winchell, perfect for posters on teenage girls’ walls), who moves to a new town with his widowed mother Molly (Bello). Max’s scientist father was killed years earlier in an industrial accident that may or may not have been caused by a tornado. More than once, Max is told by people he meets, including his dad’s former colleague (Garcia), that his father “was a very special man.”
Max is just starting to develop a romantic relationship with the attractive young Sophia (Villafane) when he’s distracted by his sudden ability to… well, it’s hard to know exactly, since the film’s special effects aren’t exactly cutting-edge. Suffice it to say that the alarmed young man does an internet search for the phrase “my fingers emit liquid energy”. (If you try it yourself, you’ll find that the results are disappointing.)
Even more strangely, he’s suddenly visited by Steel, who looks like a one-eyed drone as designed by Disney and who describes himself as a “parasitic, silicon-based life form”. Whatever he is, as voiced by Josh Brener he’s a genuinely annoying character.Together, Max and Steel become, you guessed it, Max Steel, a turbo-charged superhero who wears an armoured suit and has the ability to fly, among other things.
They find themselves pursued by forces working on behalf of the alien Ultralinks who are clearly up to no good. By the time Winchell and Garcia engage in a fierce battle wearing the sort of dark latex costumes that would make them very popular in certain nightclubs, the film has already become unintentionally laughable. As the stuntmen duke it out and we see close-ups of the two actors making silly faces, it’s hard not imagine a Mystery Science Theater 3000 feature in the making.
What’s truly depressing about the whole enterprise is that Garcia and Bello were pulled into this sort of career embarrassment. –TheHollywood Reporter
If you liked Battlefield Earth or GI Joe, you will like this.