ARCHENEMY
US, 2020, 90 minutes, Colour.
Joe Manganiello, Skylan Brooks, Zolee Griggs, Glenn Howerton, Amy Seimetz.
Directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer.
This is a very modest superhero thriller, very modest. A modest story, an alien coming to earth, holding on to his powers, encountering a young man and his older sister, the young man listening to him and wanting to tell his story, the sister involved in drug dealing and gangsters in the city.
So far, so ordinary. And with some special effects. Joe Mangin hello is Max, the alien, stranded on earth, looking rather bedraggled and like a hobo.
The gangster and his thugs go in pursuit of the sister who has stolen their money.
In the meantime, there is another alien, and archenemy, who ingratiate herself with the gangsters, attacks the brother and sister, builds up to a confrontation with Max.
And, within its modest limits, it achieves what it sets out to do.
- Graphic novel? Animation? Live-action? Interconnecting?
- The popularity of graphic novels, computer games, superheroes, action shows? Small budget? Variation on themes and styles?
- Max and his story, alien, in the planets, his status, the issue of cosmic blood, falling to earth, looking like a vagrant, wandering the city? The encounter with hamster and his sister? A sense of mission? Telling his story to Hamster? The revelation about Indigo, drugs, the gangster boss, the confrontation, the Russian roulette, taking the money? The gangster and his henchmen, after her?
- Hamster, young, the care from Indigo? Getting stories, interviewing Max? The visuals and the signs? Not believing? Accepting him? Max and the enmity from Cleo?
- The action story, threats, action, fights? Cleo and her being on Earth, with the gangster? The confrontation with Max?
- Indigo, the attack on her, her defending Hamster?
- The fight between Max and Cleo, their falling to their deaths? Hamster observing? Indigo and her wounds, falling, touching the superhero is, absorbing their power?
- Saturday matinee variation on a theme?
