"Max Steel" review

Maybe I should cut Hasbro a little bit of slack.

Teenager Max McGrath has loosely defined powers, meets a robot, and fights an alien tornado before punching a man in a super suit. That’s about the extent of the hour and a half of nigh production-less meandering of a plot named “Max Steel.”

Films like this are almost surreal to sit through. Not merely because it’s bad; it’s hard to muster up but so much shock and irritation when the weapon’s grad levels of laziness on display in the trailer alone never once manage to put forth the pretense of actually trying in the first place.

What makes “Max Steel” so infuriating to sit through is a mix of active curiosity as to exactly who was demanding its existence in the first place, astonishment at just how cheap and careless a theatrically released blockbuster can get, and the mind-numbing boredom of having to sit through something this dull despite all of the other aforementioned factors

There are no word’s to mince here; Max Steel is almost irredeemably awful. It barely would have registered a point on the scale that I use to judge direct to video B=movies, much less something that Mattel expected people to go see in theaters.

The plot focuses so much on its titular character’s life as a new kid in a new school that it almost feels like it forgot to add in action sequences until filming was about 90% complete. This wouldn’t have  been a problem if the character himself was interesting to follow in the slightest but actor Ben Winchell gives a wooden performance consisting of screaming, awkwardly asking questions about his father,  and stuttering excuses to his cardboard cutout love interest, the only person that manages to give a worse performance than his own and with whom, absolutely no chemistry is shared. Like the rest of the film, their relationship is a rewrite away from being a parody of the tropes that they’re meant to embody.

I would almost compare the film’s stunning miscalculation to 2015’s “Fantastic Four,” but at least that colossal misfire had mildly decent performances and a focus on the science fiction element that serves as the crux of the property.

After stumbling through his hollow new life with thinly defined abilities for over an hour, exposited by his robotic companion Steel, an alien that sounds like a corny public access radio DJ trying to be “hip with the kiddies,” Max finally utilizes his superhero form, in sequences less impressive than what can be found on the last 10 years of “Power Rangers.”

These action sequences should have been the reward for toughing out a “teen drama” so grating that I’d rather sit though a “Dawson’s Creek” marathon interspersed by sequences of “The Flash,” but it was at this point that I finally checked out.

As the climax battle came together,, the moment in which they obviously sunk the majority of their almost nonexistent budget, I looked dead at the screen and said, “you know what? I’m good,” and proceeded to turn my head sideways for a nice 5-10 minute nap.

As a lifelong fan of tokusatsu style and the superhero genre in general, I actively decided that the only thing about the movie that even mildly caught my attention, wasn’t worthwhile.

“Transformers” is bad but with impressive production values. “GI Joe” is bad but is tongue-in-cheek and unintentionally hilarious at moments. “Jem and the Holograms” was bad but bizarrely fascinating in its ineptitude.

“Max Steel” is nothing.

1 Action Figure fizzle out of 10