A bargain basement fantasy greeted with astounding levels of acclaim overcomes its many limitations to gain streaming immortality

The VOD market is saturated with bargain basement genre films on a regular basis, and for all intents and purposes there’s nothing about Exceptional Beings that makes it stand out among a crowded pack.

Based on the trailer alone, it was clear co-directors Christian Kazadi and Njedeh Anthony didn’t exactly have a lot to work with, and the footage boasted visual effects that could generously be described as amateurish. The presence of Eric Roberts often tends to be a sign in and of itself, too, and he was right there racking up another credit in his extensively exhaustive filmography as Poseidon of all characters.

And yet, Exceptional Beings has been greeted with a quite frankly astounding level of acclaim, proving once again that books should never be judged by their covers regardless of how cheap and uninspiring that cover may appear from the outside looking in.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the story of gods Athena and Hermes discovering there’s more to the human race than they’d believed during their 4000 years on Earth netted a remarkable 93 percent audience approval rating on the aggregation site, to go along with a stellar 7.9/10 score on IMDb.

That unexpected popularity has now translated into quantifiable streaming success, with FlixPatrol naming the surprise darling as one of the most-watched films on iTunes around the world. The promos alone wouldn’t be enough to convince anybody sitting on the fence that Exceptional Beings was worth a punt, but maybe the entirely out of the blue levels of adulation have helped sway more than a few skeptics.