Max Cloud

If you want to watch the movie to see Scott Adkins in a standard hard action role you are completely wrong and wasting your time. The movie is definitely not for you.

The movie is for you, you who like to play or have played video games, who find it funny when something like this is implemented in a weird way as a live action movie. It's one of this movies, not serious, not a great story, no large budget, but a lot of Self-irony, a good feeling and the charisma that everyone involved had fun with it. In a world where every word is weighed and everything always means the end of the world, as we know it, is coming. This is a nice movie to turn off the brain and to have a lot of fun with it.

Recently I've been watching some old DVDs that are leftover from a video store I used to own. Even when I don't like a movie I always watch it to the end. I'm about halfway into this one but I'm not sure I will finish it. A stupid plot, the acting isn't great and the action scenes and special effects aren't very good either. It's not a really long movie but it still is a waste of time. I liked video games when I was younger so I thought a movie about someone being trapped in a game might be interesting but it isn't. I definitely don't think anyone should waste their time watching this pile of garbage.

I have no idea who Scott Adkins is, but all the other reviewers seem to have a negative opinion of his interpretation of his role... I don't understand this, not only did he have fun playing a silly video game character, mid-movie we learn that his character has a super cute back-story (stupid, sure, but that's the point! I was completely captured!)

So about the movie, it was a pastiche of the 80s/90s movies. The story is between Jumanji and that movie where two kids bring a hot chick alive through a TV, I just can't remember the title. Which is fine, those movies were forgettable, but still fun!

The pastiche works, the game character's presence and jokes are... wooden, and that's by design. The game, when shown as an SNES game, is awesome. Meanwhile, inside the game, the characters do and say stuff that's deeper than the arcade game they're in. That's absolutely awesome. There's a nod to printed game guides, character back stories, and all of that eventually completes the immersion. I've developed a game in my time and to me it was absolutely awesome seeing the discrepancy between what the sprite-based characters did in an arcade-style game, compared to a 80s/90s developer's idea of what the character actually was about. I won't mark this as spoiler, but you'll see what I mean when the time comes. And believe me, it's awesome through that lens.

I't's a B movie and it's aware of it, making the best of it. It's a pastiche of a tiny sub-genre of 80s/90s movies, so maybe not for everyone. But if you're in the right mindset, you will enjoy it. And hats off the the people who created the pixel art for the game, that was actually amazing and completely transparent, as opposed to the spaceship CGI which was obviously (but very consciously) crap ;)

Here's The 4K Lowedown on "Max Cloud" (NR - 2020 - DVD)

Genre: Fantasy/Martial My Score: 5.4

Cast=6 Acting=4 Plot=4 Ending=4 Story=4 Imagine=7 CGI=6 Pace=6 Fight=7 Stunt=6

Set in the 90's, a girl finds an easter egg and gets sucked into the Max Cloud video game. She must finish the game to get out without losing her one life or getting stuck in the game forever.

"The fate of the universe is once again in the hands of...MAX CLOUD." Ok this was dumb, but I did like how they brought in the glitches from the old 90's games. It reminded me of a low rent Zathura. I was hoping for a 'so bad it's good' quality...but it didn't quite make it off the planet for me. I have often thought of reliving my twenties, but am having second thoughts if that's what it looked like.

Not even a good bad, or a "so bad it's funny" nor a "bad B movie", but... There's some good. I like the music, the CG looks nice and colorful. The rest is bad and just weird , and again, not a good weird. Another talented one lost his funding to that crap most certainly, unless it's totally self funded...