Review: Max Beyond

Web3 technologies are slowly making their way into the animation industry be it via AI, crypto, and XR and the sense is that with new tech that necessarily means all of the jobs in art will be lost, but nothing can be further from the truth. I remember a time when there was thought that Toy Story would replace all of the jobs in 2D animation, which hasn’t happened. Or when Tekken debuted on game consoles, it was thought that 2D fighting games like Street Fighter would go the way of the dinosaur, which it has not. The reason being is despite how art looks it still needs to have a center. In the world of gaming, gameplay is king. In the world of adult animation, the plot is king. I have seen television shows that look great but watch like shit and then I’ve seen TV series and movies that cost a fraction and blow everyone away in the storytelling department.

Despite the fact that we’re getting an Unreal Engine-powered film in the form of Max Beyond, it could be easy for a layman to see the technical back end going into this and thinking “it must be good, it’s made in Unreal!”. I am here to tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. Max Beyond, whilst shows some promise in the storytelling department, ultimately everything misses and sets us back to zero.

Max Beyond tells the story of Max, a young boy held captive in a research facility. Using his ability to create rifts in the fabric of spacetime across parallel universes, he searches for the reality in which his brother Leon, a former-marine, manages to rescue him. With attempt after attempt ending in Leon’s death, the strain starts to take its toll on both brothers. When Max discovers his captors are using his power against him, he realizes he must stop focusing on how the story ends and rewrite the story from the beginning.

Essentially what we’re getting is an Edge of Tomorrow trope but with an attempt at a Rick and Morty twist thought it certainly doesn’t help that the dialogue, while compelling at times, is produced so poorly that Cade Tropeano sounds like he’s delivering his “Max” records through a Pringles can. Coupled with Dave Fennoy’s performance as “Leon” which features as much emotional throughput as a humming dishwasher, together with BAFTA-award winning actor Jane Perry (Cyberpunk 2077, Hitman, Returnal)’s barely serviceable take as “Ava”, and I’m ready to send a letter to the Razzies in begging them to introduce a “Worst Voice Acting” category.

By far the worst feature of this sci-fi mess are the visuals at pretty much every level. In an aesthetic being described as “Hazimation” inspired by director/writer/producer Hasraf ‘HaZ’ Dulull, you may want to equip yourself with a hazmat suit so as to prevent yourself from ruining your clothes due to puking from the horrible animation production quality being presented here. Incongruent mouth animations, lifeless background characters, and promising fight choreography produced with about as much finesse as your kids’ local school production of The Nutcracker. Motion-capture performances from Ace Ruele (Eternals) and Alex Kong (Marvel Studio’s What If?) go to waste on clunky hand-to-hand combat sequences and I’m not even ready to talk about the character models that range from Madden NFL 2001-level of technical prowess to that of the Chucky-like presentation we get from the titular character. As I’m watching the opening sequences of this 90-minute fuck fest, I come to the slow realization that this Max Beyond kid is going to be one of the key ingredients of my nightmares for the next several years.

Max Beyond is an apt title for this film as the production has betrayed us beyond, way fucking beyond, to the point of no return. The producers promise that we can expect a companion gaming franchise. Here’s hoping the gameplay is Dead Souls-esque because if this movie is any prelude to the cinematic sequences being put together for the game, then the game reviewers of the world are going to tear this one to shreds.