Nerds That Geek Movie Review: 'Max Steel'

Written by Mike Cervantes

My very first movie review for this site, Ratchet and Clank, existed mostly so that I could ask a question: why does this film exist? After all, the Sony video game-based animated feature film, as close as it was to its original source material, simply wasn’t going to have the exposure needed in order to propel itself, or the video game-based animated feature market to any particular type of visibility. Max Steel, a film based on a reasonably remembered, but not especially beloved toy and animated TV property, developed by two very small film studios, and dropped in an awkward October film space, perplexes me in the exact same way.
​
Us late ‘90s kids remember Max Steel, the toy property that seemed to be Mattel’s answer to the original G.I. Joe: all the toys were 12 inch Ken-doll-esque action figures featuring a secret agent, available in everything from winter ski parkas to scuba gear. A TV series fleshed out his character as Josh McGrath, a teenager who, after exposure to a vat of liquefied nanotechnology, began to work as a secret agent, propelled by his ability to “Go Turbo,” raising his adrenaline to superhuman levels. The series ran on Kids’ WB, around the exact same time that the network had adopted Pokémon, and while it had tons of exposure, it was never a particularly huge hit in the United States. Mattel eventually got their money’s worth with the series by marketing it in Mexico and Latin America, where the series still re-runs regularly, and also boasts nine animated features exclusive to the region.

So, you would think that, if this film were to achieve some level of success, it would cater exclusively to that Latin American market. Regardless, it’s made here, and instead of following the plot of the original series, this film takes things in a radically different direction, utilizing a storyline from a lesser known 2013 reboot. In this version, Max McGrath (Ben Winchell) is the teenage son of a deceased scientist named Jim McGrath (Mike Doyle). When he moves back to the town that once housed his father’s destroyed science lab, he suddenly begins to emit electronic-destroying energy waves from his fingertips. A mysterious breakout at the lab and the presence of a few shady assailants in black vans leads Max to come to the conclusion that he’s being hunted. He soon encounters the subject of the lab breakout: a 5 inch tall CG floating sphere named “Steel,” (Voice of Josh Brener) and is slowly informed through the movie that he’s a half-breed alien, able to control Tachyon particles, (All the physics majors in the audience will roll your eyes here) and Steel has the ability to enhance those into “Turbo” particles (further eye rolls) to transform into Max Steel, depicted in a head-to-toe blue and black body armor. 

---

This film is very much in the mold of a certain other live action film based on a toy property, as it seeks to diminish the fantasy and sci-fi elements of its concept in order to keep the total package realistically grounded. Just as with Michael Bay’s Transformers films, the part of the plot reserved for awesome action-figure battles is reserved for the last eighth of the film’s 90 minutes. The rest of the film is focused on Max, his concerned and secret-keeping mother Molly (Maria Bello), his newly made and newly suspicious girlfriend Sofia (Ana Villafañe), and Jim’s former lab partner Dr. Miles Edwards (Andy Garcia), who is guarding the true secret to Max’s father’s disappearance. Given that Andy Garcia is the only A-list actor in this movie, it’s not a stretch to conclude that “Max Steel” would be fighting him in similarly-designed black and red armor by the film’s payoff scene.

The film seems to revel in its write-off nature at times. Despite some environment-appropriate CG being added to create Steel and display Max’s lightbulb-breaking superpowers, the whole movie is shot single camera, with close ups of the character’s faces happening so often, you think they were shooting themselves with their own cell phones. There’s stilted teenage dialogue, even among the adult characters, and a plot that seems believable until the moment that Steel, the comedy relief-inducing magic floating orb appears on the screen, then it’s “th-th-th-that’s all folks!” Most telling of its hammy nature is one barely noticeable instance that Max wanders onto the screen wearing a Masters of the Universe t-shirt, reminding the audience that Mattel has another movie with better characters, most likely being done by a mainstream studio and a much larger budget, coming out very soon. We promise.

Just as I had said with Ratchet and Clank, this is a movie for the Redbox set, a film that, while not particularly bad, is destined to receive its relevance in shrink wrap once He-Man, Stretch Armstrong, Trolls, LEGO Batman, and Emojis all hit the big screen in the coming months. The key difference, though, is that while the video-game based film is always going to have fans and appreciation bestowed upon it in the context of its native format, there’s nothing on the planet that’s ever going to make a scuba-diving Ken doll turned alien Iron Man appear to be anything cool. Hopefully Mattel will be able to shop this whole thing out south of the border as well as anything else related to the series. 

---