The superhero genre might be the most popular form of filmmaking in Hollywood, as it has been for over two decades at this point, but it isn’t above churning out more than a few stinkers. Of all the costume-clad capers to have ever emerged, though, Max Steel endures as the only one to have landed the unwanted distinction of a zero percent Rotten Tomatoes score.
While you could technically put an asterisk next to its name for the sole reason the live-action disaster is based on a toy line and not a comic book, it still fits the superpowered bill. Infamous flop Zoom is the worst-reviewed page-to-screen translation there’s ever been, while Catwoman is tied with Supergirl in the DC back catalogue and Fantastic Four brings up the rear for Marvel, but at least they all managed to get off the board.
Not a single critic could find it in their hearts to bestow Max Steel with a positive review, and even with a thrifty budget of $10 million, the film couldn’t recoup its production costs from theaters. And yet, because we live in a strange and often lawless world, it’s somehow conspired to find a spot on the most-watched rankings of the planet’s biggest streaming service.
Per FlixPatrol, Max Steel has made a shocking appearance on Netflix’s global rankings, even if we’d hazard a guess that not many subscribers are going to be left particularly thrilled with what they discover when the title hero embraces his destiny in what can unequivocally be called the weakest entry in the entire artform’s long, illustrious, and inconsistent history.