3+1 Short Paragraphs: Archenemy

 2020, Adam Egypt Mortimer (Daniel Isn't Real) -- download

Why is it that movies that depict comic books or "graphic novels", always choose the worst examples of artistry, or at best, the most exaggerated, stylistic examples? There must be a ton of concept artists available to the world of film making, especially in today's age of a thousand artists on sites like Deviant Art, ArtStation, Behance, etc. And yet, they so often just seem to grab the rough, sketchy artist guy that does their story boards, and show, "Look! Comic book art!"

Archenemy takes place in our reality, but its main character, Max Fist (Joe Manganiello, True Blood), comes from a "graphic novel" reality where he was the Superman of his world, a world that was all gawdy super science, and overreaching super villains, a world coloured via the Ultra Violet (18-3838) headspace of recent years. In his last battle with his archenemy, he was dragged through a rift in time & space and tossed onto our world. Or so he tells everyone from his new home in the gutter, between bottles of cheap booze and drug hits. Max no longer has powers, no longer has a crystal arm, no longer has a purpose,  until Hamster (Skylan Brooks, The Get Down), a local kid trying to break into streaming journalism (TikTok meets Gawker Media?), whose sister is mixed up with the local gawdy drug dealer, finds Max and begins to believe the delusional ravings of the local colour.

Sister Indigo (Zolee Griggs, Bit), wants to rise in the ranks of the seedy drug, but through a couple of bad decisions (never take the dead gangster's bag of money), she and her brother end up on the run, with Max stepping in to play Good Guy again, or as well as he can with a lack of super powers. Max may now be fueled by cheap booze and amphetamines, and his moral compass gone so far left, he leaves nothing but bodies in his wake, but he is surprisingly capable for a homeless addict. Maybe there is something to his story? 

And that's where the final act comes in. While I knew what was going to happen, I ultimately felt let down by the reveal and conclusion. While the confusion and chaos of the earlier story were just that, confusing and chaotic, they had a sense of style while the rest just felt rushed to an ending that was also a beginning, the cliché that all superhero movies are origin stories. As for who the archenemy was, well it was such a minor point to the overall story, I wonder why they even endeavoured. Still, I enjoyed myself, and the performances were decent, even the snazzy dressers that were the Bad Guys.