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Max Steel | 2016 | PG-13 | - 1.5.4

A teenager (Ben Winchell) discovers that he can emit waves of tachyon energy, but cannot control them until a quirky extraterrestrial (voiced by Josh Brener) asks to link their skills and channel the energy to save lives. When joined, they become an incredible superhero who must confront a mad scientist (Andy Garcia) and super-villains from a far off galaxy. Also with Maria Bello, Ana Villafane and Mike Doyle. Directed by Stewart Hendler. [1:32]

SEX/NUDITY 1 - A teen girl kisses a teen boy for a few seconds at her home and they agree to go on a date. A small floating robot flirts with a similar-looking desk lamp, asking, "What's your name?"
 A woman wears a scoop neck shirt or a spaghetti strap tank top that reveal cleavage in a couple of scenes. A teen boy removes his shirt and we briefly see his bare chest, arms and shoulders.

VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - A prolonged fight scene near an energy chamber shows a man wearing a glowing armor suit with a long claw on one arm while his opponent (a teen boy) wears a large glowing armor suit with a small one-eyed robot attached flat against his chest and the fight includes punches, martial arts kicks and somersaults, choking and head-butts: the man chokes the teen and slams him against a wall and onto the floor, stomping on his chest, he pushes the claw into the boy's armor and drains some energy, and the teen becomes invisible until he is punched in the midsection; soldiers with assault rifles shoot the man with no effect and he knocks three soldiers off-screen, presumably dead, he slams the teen against a wall, into the floor, kicks and punches him, slams him into a wall again, and jams the claw into the teen's chest, causing his armor to overload and kill the man, who screams (we see several close-ups of the man and the teen grimacing or screaming inside their helmets); the screen goes white and comes back up on a teen boy lying on a floor beside a small crumpled robot creature, the boy's face and forehead are scratched and his chest is covered in red marks and the robot reanimates, emitting a prolonged "Owww!"
 An extended flashback shows a boy looking into a glowing chamber and the boy's father removes his shirt to attach electrodes to his chest and he walks to a glowing chamber where he climbs into a space travel device; a robot becomes animated and shouts that another man is evil; a man with a long armored red claw that includes pincers and a rotating light inside the pincers stands outside the chamber and argues with the man inside, finally shouting, "I'm going to drain off every ounce of energy that you have!" as the claw extends toward the camera and the screen goes black, and then the man inside the chamber says that he will overload the chamber and the screen flashes bright white and then pink.
 A huge tornado with thunder and lightning has a 20-foot tall robot with a glowing red eye forming inside the funnel cloud, it chases a teen boy through woods and a field, the robot grabs the boy by one ankle twice, but loses its grip and the boy runs to a large metal drainage pipe where he hides, and he then runs along a railroad track with a train bearing down on him; he sees a woman in her car stalled on the tracks and when he touches the car's hood it starts up and she drives away, he runs to a shed where he locks himself in and strong winds pound on the door and we see the boy pull a sharp object out of his knee and he grunts (we see no blood) and an overhead light bulb pops out and four roars of thunder sound.
 A teen boy looks into a showcase at school and makes a fist as the camera cuts to a bubbling swimming pool in a dark building, indicating a power transfer from the boy to the pool; two scientists become alarmed and an emergency light goes on, gas lines hiss and water gurgles as soldiers with assault rifles enter, fire a few shots and the pool of water shoots into the air, filling the room with threads of energy that look like water streams and glowing spots; a small squid-like creature with glowing spots shoots out of the pool, turns invisible, chews up a path on a concrete floor, and then shoots through the ceiling causing chunks of concrete and dirt to fall to the floor. A funnel cloud appears inside a shed and a teen boy transforms into a large armored being that fires energy and lightning out of his chest at a robot-like entity in a tornado cloud; the cloud dissipates and leaves a small robot lifeless on the floor (the boy has long scratches on both sides of his face).
 Soldiers kidnap a woman and she later looks angrily at the soldiers reminding them that she is the major shareholder, and orders them not to harm a robot belonging to the company. Men chase a teen boy through dark woods at night, shooting but missing as the boy rides his bike away; another group of men and a woman chase the boy and he escapes deeper into the woods and to safety at home.
 We hear that a teen boy's father died mysteriously in an energy production lab when the boy was younger, and that his mom has been taking him to several doctors in different cities ever since; because the boy is not sick, he is confused until one day when he moves his hand in front of a TV screen and energy waves ripple across it, cell phones lose power when he walks or rides his bike by and the power goes off in his house, his laptop dies as he uses it, a vending machine unloads about two dozen cans of soda onto the floor; glowing spots and threads like water flow from his fingers failing to stop when he shouts, "Off!" and he shouts and falls to the floor when energy emits from his hands (he is uninjured), he rushes into the woods and shouts in pain when energy flows and he sets up some appliances in the woods lets energy flow from his fingers, grasps a power cord, a radio begins to play and a lamp pops, bursts into flames, and the boy falls to the ground as the scene ends. A woman gives her son a gemstone that creates a hologram of his father, who animates a mobile that he made of the solar system and it begins to spin and whirl in many colors, showing a universe of planets and stars.
 Two scenes show video footage of men running through hallways as a high wind blows outside and funnel clouds appear and we see debris and smashed furniture. Over a dozen replays of a flashback scene feature a man with large electrodes just under his bare collar bones, with cables leading below the frame as he lies back in some sort of space travel device; energy waves blur the air around his head as he grimaces and we see some sparks. A restaurant loses power after a teen boy has been in it a couple of minutes; he rushes to the woods and shouts, falling down and the camera cuts to him as he awakens in the morning with his bed sheet and T-shirt burned full of small holes and we see red V-shaped scars covering the center of his chest; he screams in the bathroom, runs out and slams the door, but it opens and a small robot with one glowing eye floats out and they argue briefly, with the robot finally saying, "I'm here to protect you from everything that's trying to kill us." Energy waves cause a dark pool of water in an abandoned laboratory to bubble a few nights in a row, with spotlights showing under the surface.
 A teen boy and an animated robot argue and the boy throws energy at it to push it away, and then leaves. A small robot tells a teen boy that the boy emits tachyon power that will kill the human, but that the robot can absorb it as fuel. A robot clasps one of a teen boy's legs and says it absorbed energy and that tachyon energy is its only source of fuel. A teen boy finds a bomb shelter at home and asks his mother if his deceased father was planning for the zombie apocalypse; she says that his life was complicated.
 A teen boy swerves his bike to avoid hitting a car, propels over a bike rack, and falls on his back; the teen girl driving the car runs up and repeats, "Don't be dead!" four times (he is unharmed). A teen boy swerves in front of a car and no one hits anything, but the car's brakes squeal. Two cars follow a teen boy, but a small robot flattens a tire on each vehicle with energy sparks. A teen boy borrows a car and drives to an abandoned laboratory, the car dies, the boy takes his bike out and rides it to the gate.
 A teen boy knocks books out of the hands of a smaller boy in a high school hall. Three TVs in backgrounds feature brief scenes of fighters in martial arts films, somersaulting, kicking, and punching (a teen boy later does all of the moves while alone in an abandoned building). A teen boy with super powers punches a concrete wall and raises dust, but does not break it. A teen boy uses a rock to break a lock off a fence at an abandoned and darkened energy plant and he sees debris and broken furniture with water dripping onto a wet floor; a small robot knocks him down and absorbs energy that we do not see and the boy punches a concrete wall, but does not break it, and is also not injured (please see the Language category for more details). A teen boy punches through a wall and causes some concrete chunks to fall, he kicks a heavy barrel across a floor, sails into high rafters and then down to transform into a being in a large armor suit. A being wearing an armored suit flies away through the sky in a long shot.
 A teen boy carries a small creature in his backpack and kicks the pack when the creature speaks during a class. A Goth boy wearing black eyeliner and pierced nose bumps into a boy's backpack and a voice says, "We're under attack!" causing the Goth to glare and walks away. A robot in a backpack shudders and mumbles, causing a teen girl to look wide-eyed as a teen boy rushes away; the robot later says about the girl, "We should probably kill her," and the boy says, "No." A robot is white metal, the size of a softball, with two small sets of flippers at its top and two long hinged flippers at its sides with some blue viscous material between panels of white metal.
 A teen boy hides a small robot in a clothes hamper and it says that it smells bad in there. A radio broadcast mentions mesothelioma.

LANGUAGE 4 - 1 not-fully enunciated F-word, 3 mild obscenities (damn, hell, sucks,), name-calling (weird, insane, stupid, idiot, nuts, monster, wind-monster, aliens, space vampire, battery), exclamations (shut-up), 4 religious exclamations (Oh My God).

SUBSTANCE USE - A teen boy removes an unmarked medicine bottle from the medicine cabinet in his bathroom and when he shakes it we hear pills rattle (he does not open it). A partial bottle of wine and two half-full wine glasses are seen on a table and a woman drinks from her glass.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Single moms, death, loss, grief, loneliness, misunderstood illness, remembering departed loved ones, people who are different, people who are greedy and power hungry, alien life forms, super powers, heroes, villains, trust, cooperation, friendship.

MESSAGE - Support from family and good friends can help teenagers fulfill their potential.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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