Joe Manganiello is Max Fist, a hulking hobo who may or may not be a superhero trapped on Earth and stripped of his godlike superpowers. He gulps and snorts earthbound ambrosia like gut rot whiskey and crystal meth to reignite his ability to punch holes through space/time, but he merely scrapes his knuckles when pounding brick walls. He limps and growls through a Rick Grimes beard, reminisces about his life in the city of Chromium, a white Hancock who plummeted through a swirling vortex, such a feature of recent low-budget movies that promise Lovecraftian cosmic terror and cod – Nietzschean philosophy.
Redemption comes knocking when wannabe social-media journalist Hamster gets a gig with website Trendible and his posts about Max’s improbable story start to gain traction. His older sister, Indigo, runs with a cartoon drug lord known as The Manager, played with Glen Howerton’s trademark sleazy charm, and in another universe “Archenemy” could be a gonzo episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”.
When Hamster and Indigo have the unstable Max in tow, it’s only a matter of time until he clashes with The Manager’s goon squad and the real power behind The Manager’s throne emerges as the titular archenemy.
Director Adam Egypt Mortimer conjures up memories of low budget sci-fi from the 1980s, Max Fist has a Kyle Reese wardrobe lifted from “The Terminator” and Hamster and Indigo evoke the innocence of “The Brother from Another Planet”. The most arresting aspects of “Archenemy” are the excellent animated sequences that flashback to Fist’s superhero heyday. They are bold and brash like the rotoscoping of Ralph Bakshi’s version of “Lord of the Rings”.
The fight sequences are slap dash, like a half-speed rehearsal rather than a full-on slug fest
Yet, for all of its lo-fi originality, “Archenemy” feels hackneyed, and half finished. The fight sequences are slap dash, like a half-speed rehearsal rather than a full-on slug fest. The best low-budget movies pretend they’re high end and play to their strengths and hide their weaknesses. Who knows? Maybe Covid-19 got in the way.
Still, we should applaud Elijah Wood’s production company, “SpectreVision”, for their commitment to genre filmmaking. With great midnight movies such as “Mandy”, “Color Out of Space” and Mortimer’s sophomore effort, “Daniel Isn’t Real”, they offer a bloody and thrilling antidote to mainstream Hollywood. Mortimer has hinted that another film will link ‘Daniel Isn’t Real” and ‘Archenemy” together in a so-called “Vortex” trilogy along the lines of john Carpenter’s “Apocalypse trilogy of the 1980s.
An interesting sidenote is that Joe Manganiello was close to playing Superman for Zack Snyder and then ended up as Deathstroke in “Justice League”. Without his powers, Max Fist – armoured and trigger happy – seems a lot closer to the latter than the former. Perhaps Manganiello is exorcising some real demons in “Archenemy” – now that is worth breaking your bones on brick walls for…