Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Archenemy Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Randy Miller III February 19, 2021

Truly a film whose reach exceeds its grasp, Adam Egypt Mortimer's Archenemy is a superhero drama with big ambitions on a tight budget. I'm normally not one to handicap anything with limited means (and I want to respect the director's enthusiasm to get it made, no matter what), but this is a clear case of a film that should have been launched after it had a few million dollars to play with... or, well, not at all. It's also part of a planned "Vortex Trilogy" that began with 2019's Daniel Isn't Real, which our own Brian Orndorf seemed to like and, though I haven't seen that film yet, its much more down-to-earth premise likely doesn't suffer from any of the crippling budget-related setbacks here.

Elephant in the room: Archenemy's visual effects are awful. They look like storyboards put in place for finished effects that were never made... and almost every time they appear on screen, they immediately take me out of a story that's not terribly compelling to begin with. Even worse, they kick off the film with the self-narrated origin of a cosmic being (Joe Manganiello, True Blood) -- later nicknamed "Max Fist" , which sticks for some reason -- who's from the distant city of Chromium and lost a battle with his archenemy, Cleo Ventrik (Amy Seimetz, Pet Sematary).

Still with me? Max ended up on Earth but is now homeless and drinks his life away when he's not snorting meth and is ignored by everyone, even the bartender... until the arrival of Hamster (Skylan Brooks, The Darkest Minds), a skater who's looking for interesting content to post for a social media juggernaut. Buying in to Max's tall tales of string theory and cosmic forces, Hamster creates an entire world for this character and finds success. Unfortunately, real life gets in the way: Hamster's drug- dealing older sister Indigo (Zolee Griggs, Bride Wars) is in trouble after an unfortunate run-in with slimy syndicate member Grieg (Paul Scheer, The League), and her boss "The Manager" (Glenn Howerton, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) has to deal with at least one dead body and a missing duffel bag of cash.

It's "put up or shut up" time for Max Fist who, along with Hamster, must confront both the physical danger facing Indigo as well as his own psychological demons, which later arrive in the form of Cleo Ventrik herself. Along the way, Max and his ambitious young pal attempt to fill in the blanks of his patchy ramblings, which we're never quite sure are genuine or simply tales of a drunken bum. This is well-worn territory in the ever-expanding genre of comic book movies and their multiple decades of source material -- most noticeably in existing franchises like Punisher -- but Archenemy, despite the valiant attempts to craft its own universe, just never makes a good enough case for it.

Individual parts of this movie are good enough: I liked the performances of Skylan Brooks and Zolee Griggs as the brother and sister, and the script dodges a lot of the potentially stiff dialogue that plagues most superhero fare. But as a whole it never clicks: Archenemy slogs through underworld drama with villains who never seem threatening, subverts its own logic at key moments, and ultimately digs its own grave with those extremely rough visual effects.

RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray at least adds some support for fans of the film, which includes a solid A/V presentation and a short behind-the- scenes featurette with cast and crew members. Embarrassingly, though, the back cover synopsis gets one part of Max's origin story wrong... a fact that's even corrected during the movie itself. Whoops!

Archenemy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

...but hey, at least the Blu-ray looks decent. RLJ Entertainment's 1080p transfer goes a long way in making sure that Archenemy's modest source material is preserved on disc, as its dimly-lit interiors and those subsequent deep blacks aren't crushed or full of excess noise at every turn. Contrast levels fare well and image detail is respectable in daytime scenes and close-ups, although the picture as a whole is typically flat and relies on the trendy teal-and-orange palette during key stretches to maximize its limited visual interest. And those visual effects sequences, as limited as they are, do exhibit pleasing color tones with bright hot pinks and other attractive hues that break up a lot of the film's endless darkness. The Blu-ray also runs at a fairly high bit rate, affording Archenemy rock-solid compression that isn't awash in banding or artifacts outside of those baked in to the source material. Overall, no real complaints here.

Archenemy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The situation improves somewhat with Archenemy's DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix, which does a very respectable job of bringing the film's world to life. It's most impressive during the VFX sequences, as rear channels are used to good effect and pack quite a wallop with heavy sound effects, a strong overall ambiance, and discrete panning effects to fill in blanks left by the lacking visuals. Other sequences are dialed back with stray location exceptions like the run-down city streets and Max's watering hole, as well as occasional real-world action scenes that include heavy gunshots and hand-to-hand combat. It's a perfectly competent mix that easily stands as Archenemy's technical highlight.

English (SDH), French, and Spanish subtitles are included; they're formatted nicely with no sync issues.

Archenemy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with appropriately comic-themed cover artwork, a matching slipcover, and no inserts. The bonus features are very limited but better than nothing.

• The Making of Archenemy (6:53) - Director Adam Egypt Mortimer -- along with actors Joe Manganiello, Skylan Brooks, Zolee Griggs, and Amy Seimetz, among others -- offers a brief rundown of the film's inception and themes, as well as individual characters within the world. It's obviously limited in scope but is well-produced and looks great, unlike all of those disappointing Zoom call featurettes on most recent releases.

Archenemy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Adam Egypt Mortimer's Archenemy throws its hat in the superhero drama ring but can't compete, offering little more than well- worn drama that's hindered by its extremely limited visual effects. It's the kind of film a director should wait to make until they have the resources to back it up -- there's barely any flash or substance here, which makes for a pretty flat viewing experience with little replay value. RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray at least serves up a decent A/V presentation and a bonus featurette, but the end result still isn't recommended blind buy material.