Scott Adkins is famed for his truly impressive martial arts and stoic acting in excellent titles such as Close Range, Dead Reckoning, and Zero Dark Thirty. Max Cloud allows him to show off his action sensibilities, which are awe-inspiring, while giving attention to his rather sharp comedic chops. Max Cloud is an arrogant, aloof person, concerned only with the mission; aka the exact kind of space captain, it would be fun to control in a videogame. Adkins perfectly portrays the egotistical captain and generates quite a few laughs.
Isabelle Allen’s Sarah is only on screen for a few minutes, but she does a lot of talking and is excellent. Whether she’s pleading with Cowboy to help save her or attempting to explain the Space Witch, her confusion, frustration, and courage are all evident. Langridge has the difficult task of acting as the videogame character Jake and Sarah as Jake. He handles the job quite well, mimicking her speech patterns believably.
“Adkins perfectly portrays the egotistical captain…”
Amongst all this good, there is one issue, and while it might seem like a nitpick, it really does break the immersiveness of Max Cloud. Within the movie, the game is a 32-bit adventure that Sarah is playing on a console. Her being able to speak to Cowboy makes sense, given that televisions have speakers and all that jazz. But, how is she hearing him inside the game? He is not wearing a headset of any sort, and even if he were, the game is not designed to support such. Granted, this is a movie about a Space Witch pulling someone into a game, but that affects only Sarah. So is her whole room magic now? If so, what are the rules and expanse of the Space Witch’s powers? The world-building in this regard is a bit lackluster, causing confusion and occasionally pulling audience members out of the film.
Max Cloud is not perfect, but it is a remarkable amount of fun. While the world-building could use some retooling to shape it up more, the acting, especially an amusing Scott Adkins, the directing, and overall look/ design of the sci-fi adventure all make for a movie that is entirely enjoyable from start to finish.
"…capper to the unofficial Max trilogy..."
