Movie review: Wilmington-made "Max Steel" struggles to be more than plastic

Max Steel Official Trailer 1 (2016) - Superhero Movie

Locally shot and long-delayed action film "Max Steel" beautifully showcases the Port City but struggles to rise to the superhero occasion.

By Hunter Ingram StarNews Staff

The only thing lower than mainstream awareness of Max Steel, the Mattel toy action figure launched in the "90s, might be awareness of the live-action movie it"s spawned. "Max Steel," shot in Wilmington more than two years ago and released by Open Road Films, opened quietly in theaters Friday.

Although obscure, the Max Steel toy line has inspired comic books, two cartoon series and a handful of straight-to-DVD movies, most released internationally. In today"s superhero-drenched film market, a leap to the big screen for Max was inevitable.

But what fans and audiences who stumbled into the wrong theater get is a generic superhero film that could be scrubbed of Max"s name and bare-bones origin story and still be just as effective -- which is to say not very.

The film"s take on Max"s interchangeable story -- from Thor: The Dark World" scribe Christopher Yost -- unfolds with the complexity of two kids banging their action figures together in an imaginary backyard war.

Max (Ben Winchell) is a quiet teen forced to move with his mother (Maria Bello, in a thankless role) back to the town where he was born and within sight of the technology company where his father worked and mysteriously died. Barely 12 hours passes before the homecoming awakens something in the 16-year-old he cant explain.

In essence, the film is an unintentional 90-minute nod to a boy going through puberty, touching on everything from his accelerated heart rate when approached by the pretty girl (which is literally all poor Ana Villafae is there for) to his struggles to keep his excitement, er, powers, in check in public.

You see, Max can harness pure energy and a lot of it. It first manifests as a stringy substance emitting from his hands (another eyebrow-raising allusion to being a teenage boy) and quickly balloons from there.

Although the title would have viewers believe Max was gifted with an awesome last name, Steel is actually a floating alien orb voiced by Josh Brenner with a fondness for literal meaning (think Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory"). Steel is essential in containing and amplifying the teens powers.

From there, the film hits all the superhero-in-training basics: a not-so-surprising villain (Andy Garcia), a rift between hero and sidekick, and supporting women given little more to do than react.

Suffice to say Max Steel is never going to be the newest Avenger.

Even under the weight of a story thats both barely there and somehow convoluted, the modestly budgeted film boasts impressive special effects that only become more vibrant as Maxs powers diversify (stealth mode! flying! karate?) and his predicament worsens.

Director Stuart Hendler ("Sorority Row," TV"s "H+") clearly recognizes the asset it has in Wilmington and shows it off with long, sweeping takes of Masonboro Sound and a fondness for the dilapidated beauty inside Castle Haynes empty Ideal Cement plant.

Despite attempts to find the enormity in Maxs situation, the film never dreams big, instead maintaining its small-town, small-stakes trajectory. Unlike like every big-budget superhero movie flooding theaters, the fate of the world is never in Max Steel"s hands.

Maybe that"s for the best.

Reporter Hunter Ingram can be reached at 910-343-2327 or Hunter.Ingram@StarNewsOnline.com.

Source: http://www.starnewsonline.com/news/20161015/movie-review-wilmington-made-max-steel-struggles-to-be-more-than-plastic