Clip It: Each day, Jon Davis looks at the world of trailers, featurettes, and clips and puts it all in perspective.
If bad guys were chasing you and you were saved by a superhero named Max Steel, would you be okay with it? I would. I'd be thankful to be alive. But after the gratitude wore off, I'd be bummed that it wasn't Spider-Man, Superman, or Batman. In terms of popularity, Max Steel is strictly C-list. If he and Luke Cage were to go to clubbing together, Luke Cage would be waved in, while Max Steel would be stuck behind the velvet rope.
But superheroes aren't in it for the fame, they're in it for the justice. And as far as Max Steel's concerned, he could have it much worse. He's lucky. He's not disfigured like Fantastic Four's Thing. (Or other granite-based heroes like Concrete and Badrock, and no, I didn't make those up.)
The trailer for Max Steel gives us a sense of his origin. The movie will obviously go into more in detail. But here's what I can make out: Max McGrath is a teenager whose dad – a government scientist? – left him some alien hardware in the form of a wisecracking robot. When he and the witty robot merge, he becomes Max Steel, an adult Iron Man type figure (but with organic armor) ready and willing to do his level best to rid the world of evil organizations. Commence heroism!
Will I see this movie? Eventually. I have a two-year-old who has already shown interest in superheroes. Once he's older and we run out of superhero movies (if that's possible), we will end up with Max Steel at the bottom of the barrel. The bigger question is: do we watch it before or after we watch Steel with Shaquille O'Neil? I don't want to confuse him.
Could Max Steel – who is based on a series of Mattel toys and animated series – become the most important new hero for a new generation? It's possible. But it doesn't seem likely to a close minded Generation X-er like myself. Do you love Max Steel? I'd love to hear from the Max Steel fans out there.