Following last year’s brain bending, psychedelic fantasy thriller Daniel Isn’t Real, writer/director Adam Egypt Mortimer hot-footed it back into production for his follow-up, Archenemy, a dazzlingly delirious part urban crime drama bolstered by cosmic action and funky, interdimensional superhero bedlam.
Teen wannabe crime reporter Hamster (Skylan Brooks) happens upon a haphazard hobo, Max Fist (Joe Manganiello) who claims to be a cosmic warrior from another dimension. After being dispelled to another reality by archenemy Cleo (Amy Seimetz), Fist finds himself homeless and without powers so sunk into a self-destructive coil of booze and drug abuse, until he meets Hamster.
Hamster thinks Fist’s story could land him a full time journalism position, but plans go awry after his drug pushing sister Indigo’s (Zolee Griggs) misgivings land the three of them in trouble with a local gang. Fist then sets out to rescue Indigo from the crime syndicate thus,...
Teen wannabe crime reporter Hamster (Skylan Brooks) happens upon a haphazard hobo, Max Fist (Joe Manganiello) who claims to be a cosmic warrior from another dimension. After being dispelled to another reality by archenemy Cleo (Amy Seimetz), Fist finds himself homeless and without powers so sunk into a self-destructive coil of booze and drug abuse, until he meets Hamster.
Hamster thinks Fist’s story could land him a full time journalism position, but plans go awry after his drug pushing sister Indigo’s (Zolee Griggs) misgivings land the three of them in trouble with a local gang. Fist then sets out to rescue Indigo from the crime syndicate thus,...
- 2/10/2021
- by Daniel Goodwin
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Superhero movies have become so pervasive since the turn of the millennium that they’ve spurred a whole subgenre of films subverting their formulas — primarily low-budget efforts like “Special,” “Super” and “Defendor,” but also major-studio projects “Joker” and “Hancock.” All share an interest in peeling back the mask, exploring the antisocial, delusional-fantasy side of superpowers.
Adam Egypt Mortimer’s third feature “Archenemy” occupies similar terrain, resourcefully using modest means to create a gritty yet stylized comic-book world in which a supposed fallen superhero may really just be some homeless guy with mental issues. However, that colorful surface is more successfully drawn than the characters and complications meant to fill it, leaving this noirish, (mostly) live-action cartoon feeling less like a dissection of superhero origin stories than an underdeveloped prologue to one.
It has its own prologue, marking the first of several sharp animated sequences credited to Sunando, Kevin Finnegan and Danny Perez.
Adam Egypt Mortimer’s third feature “Archenemy” occupies similar terrain, resourcefully using modest means to create a gritty yet stylized comic-book world in which a supposed fallen superhero may really just be some homeless guy with mental issues. However, that colorful surface is more successfully drawn than the characters and complications meant to fill it, leaving this noirish, (mostly) live-action cartoon feeling less like a dissection of superhero origin stories than an underdeveloped prologue to one.
It has its own prologue, marking the first of several sharp animated sequences credited to Sunando, Kevin Finnegan and Danny Perez.
- 12/11/2020
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
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