“Max Steel” is a movie sprung from a children’s action figure: a slick Mattel toy from the late 1990s that varies in length, width and style, depending on which model you picked up. For any prospective viewers, this is perhaps the only fact you need to know upon entering Stewart Hendler’s 92-minute sci-fi journey.
If reverence is what you have for Max Steel, then you’ll likely find some enjoyment in his three-dimensional transformation from miniature toy figure to overgrown teenage boy. As for the rest, Hendler (“Sorority Row”) offers up essentially nothing. Despite its sizable production costs, “Max Steel” is a spectacle without the spectacle, an autumnal, amorphous blockbuster that just sits there, suspended in mid-air, as you soak in its ceaseless banality.
The sameness of “Max Steel” begins with its protagonist, taciturn 16-year-old Max (Ben Winchell, “Finding Carter“) frustrated with his single mother, Molly (Maria Bello). Once again, the two of them have uprooted to another town in the hopes of starting anew. “Fresh start number nine!” says Max, sarcastically. “It’s only the eighth time!” replies Molly. This is the type of witty banter we’re privy to for the next hour and a half. There are reasons why they’ve relocated, and why they’re without a father and husband. However, since screenwriter Christopher Yost (“Thor: The Dark World”) is careful (or, rather, obstinate) about disclosing them, it seems unfair to do so in a review.
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