One of the biggest criticisms of modern superhero cinema is that the majority of costume-clad capers all feel as if they’ve been cut from the same cloth, although that’s a claim that certainly can’t be leveled against 2020’s Archenemy.
Writer and director Adam Egypt Mortimer delivered an entirely unique entry into the genre that proved to viciously split opinion down the middle – landing a Certified Fresh approval rating of 75 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a 48 percent audience score – but it’s easy to see why.
Joe Manganiello stars as Max Fist, a homeless drug addict who claims to be an omnipotent being from an alternate dimension that’s been trapped on Earth and stripped of his abilities. Of course, a troubled teenager thinks the guy is out of his mind, and you’ll be left wondering if he really is.
In an interview with ScreenRant, producer Jeff Annison addressed the chances of a sequel, and it doesn’t seem to be completely off the table for those hoping the mind-bending world would be explored further.
“It’s also cool, I think if you look at just Archenemy, and doing some sort of follow-up, or a sequel, or something like that — it was unfortunate that that movie came out when it did with COVID, it’s been a difficult time, but I do think it’s a really fun universe, and I think it’s a really colorful cast of characters, and so I always hold out hope that maybe there’s something we could do in the future, even if it was just a comic book, or a kind of graphic novel. That would be a fun place to start, maybe, to build out that universe a little bit. So we’ll see, maybe, keep your fingers crossed. If it’s something you hope for, and put it out into the universe, hopefully, it will happen.”
Packed with trippy visuals, hallucinogenic asides, bursts of violence, and a genre-hopping tone that never settles from scene to scene, Archenemy is truly one of a kind. Whether it would work a second time remains up for debate, but we’d be curious to find out.
Published: Sep 4, 2023 11:45 am