Max Steel: A Franchise Flop?
This film represents one of the weakest attempts in recent years to bring a gaming franchise to the big screen. It lacks any semblance of drive, is completely devoid of energy, and utterly disregards the audience.
After years of moving around, teenager Max McGrath and his mother return to the old house where his family once lived. Settling into the new/old place and a new school isn’t easy for Max, especially when he discovers strange changes in his body – he’s literally bursting with mysterious energy. At the same time, in a secret laboratory of the N-Tek corporation, a mysterious cyber-mechanism that has been “sleeping” for 16 years awakens. How is the teenager connected to the alien device? What happened in the laboratory immediately after Max’s birth that made his mother flee? Under what circumstances did Max’s father die? The teenager will have to find out all this while mastering the powers he has been given.
Initial attempts to make a film based on the Max Steel toy line were made by Paramount back in 2009. At that time, Taylor Lautner was slated to play the lead role.
The saying “Bad example is infectious” isn’t quite accurate – a successful example is even more infectious, and it’s much harder to get rid of its “infection.” When you see miracles happening before your eyes, when multi-billion dollar franchises grow out of comics, when a book about a boy wizard turns into the main cinematic event for an entire generation, when a director makes a blockbuster that grosses a billion dollars from toys with plastic wheels, you can’t help but wonder – how can I join this wave of success? Mattel, a company specializing in children’s toys, whose flagship is the Barbie doll line, has long been eyeing the movie theater box office, but hasn’t yet dared to enter into a real battle with competitors. And so, the “Max Steel” reconnaissance ended in nothing.
Mattel’s next attempt to give its toys a new screen life will be the release of “Monster High” in 2017, based on the character figures from classic horror films.
What is Max Steel?
Who, or rather, what is “Max Steel”? First of all, it’s a fairly popular series of animated films and related toys about a teenager who befriends an alien “companion.” The symbiosis of Max McGrath and the flying chatterbox Steel is what makes Max Steel – a kind of majestic cyber-warrior clad in a futuristic combat suit with the ability to jump, fly, and deliver powerful blows. Over the course of the animated series, young fans of the hero learned about his origins, the secrets of his parents, and appreciated the threats coming from space and lurking on Earth. It seems like a starting point for a new teenage franchise is ready. But not so fast.
The Film’s Fatal Flaws
First and foremost, the problems with the cinematic Max are that the film isn’t a standalone entity. If you’re not aware of all of Max’s relationships with those around him, the plot of the film may seem like utter nonsense to you. A series of alien race names, mysterious energy sources, appearing and disappearing characters – the script for “Max Steel” doesn’t just limp, it’s a cripple without arms, legs, or even a head. Secondly, for a film about the greatest source of energy in the universe, “Max” is somehow indecently modest. All this “super energy” is expressed in a couple of shots with “hairy” hands, which evoke nothing from the viewer except a skeptical snort. Finally, the leading role in the film is given to such a bland actor that even if Michael Bay himself directed the action, most of the audience would still yawn.
A Missed Opportunity
In general, it’s hard to say what Mattel was counting on when launching a fantastic action movie with a modest and even, dare we say, “pathetic” budget of 20 million dollars. Did they want to surprise with graphics? Costumes like Max’s attire are now featured even in amateur short films. Did they plan to attract famous actors? But Andy Garcia and Maria Bello in this film look like real aliens who found themselves on a foreign celestial body without the usual atmosphere. Maybe they wanted to please us with the antics of the flying alien Steel? But doing something like that in post-production isn’t that difficult, and the image of the talkative assistant to the main character is a cliché so hackneyed that it makes your jaws ache.
Final Verdict
So, what is there to watch in the new film? Nothing. It’s a sad sight that even in pre-“Iron Man” times would have looked like a B-movie aimed at younger schoolchildren. Now, with such a film, you shouldn’t even hope for success; fans of cartoons won’t appreciate the film, and new viewers won’t love it. Unless you can look at Ana Villafañe, but she is far from Megan Fox.