Small, imperfectly formed but quite entertaining all the same, this wacky sci-fi-adjacent feature stars Joe Manganiello (from the Magic Mike movies and, let’s not forget, Smurfs: The Lost Village) as an intense, homeless man with a cut torso who calls himself Max Fist. Max has a taste for hooch and crystal meth but also claims to be a super powerful fighter for justice from a parallel universe – a realm that just so happens to be accessible through an abandoned shopping mall in grotty Edge City where the action is set. While all that unfolds in a real enough looking US city, shot on film stock, the stories Max narrates about his previous life in the other universe are illustrated with some groovy looking animation and a mix of stylised drawings and computer renderings, mostly in a hypersaturated palette of electric blue and magenta pink.
This colour scheme persists throughout, cropping up in the live-action sequences, too, giving the whole film a pop art, candy-coloured artificiality that’s pleasingly retro. The film’s other heroes, a teenager named Hamster (Skylan Brooks) and his tough older sister Indigo (Zolee Griggs) feel drawn very much from a 21st-century gallery of archetypes, what with Hamster aspiring to make it big as an influencer online while Indigo is breaking through the glass ceiling as a female drug dealer, working for a local thug known only as the Manager (Glenn Howerton, hamming it up amusingly). Writer-director Adam Egypt Mortimer moves seamlessly between the two registers, although, in truth, the last act feels breathless and rushed. Mumblecore star Amy Seimetz (Upstream Color) makes it all worthwhile with a turn that doesn’t get that much screen time but leaves a huge impression.
• Released on 22 February on digital platforms.
