Max Cloud (2020) is a martial arts space opera with a video game theme, and I love this movie. I love it so much that after watching it, I immediately bought the Blu-ray.
Not everyone shares my enthusiasm—it’s a polarizing film. Some people think it’s trash. Me? I think it’s a sheer delight that blew away my expectations.
The movie takes place in 1990 and follows a teenage girl, Sarah (Isabelle Allen), who gets sucked into a video game while playing her Sega Genesis. She finds herself trapped in the body of Max Cloud’s sidekick, Jake, and to make things even more complicated, she’s being controlled by her best friend, Cowboy (Franz Drameh), a hot dog-eating teenager.
The game, of course, is called Max Cloud, and Max Cloud is played by Scott Adkins. I love that the protagonist is the sidekick rather than the main character—it creates so many hilarious situations. One of the joys of the film is that Max Cloud is this ridiculously arrogant space captain who always assumes he’s right and charges headfirst into danger, while Sarah has everything at stake. If the game ends or the console is turned off, she’s done for.
The concept of being trapped in a video game is nothing new. Tron did it back in 1982, and video games have played with this idea too—Kid Chameleon, a Sega Genesis game from around the same time as this fictional game, had the same premise. More recently, Rad Rodgers explored a similar theme, where a kid gets sucked into a video game and becomes a space opera protagonist. But what makes Max Cloud stand out, what makes it special, comes down to two things I genuinely love.
First, the attention to detail. It might seem like a small thing, but it’s not. The movie takes great care to use period-accurate hardware. They can’t call it a Sega Genesis for licensing reasons, but it’s absolutely a Sega Genesis. The graphics look era-appropriate too—more like something from a VGA-capable PC game, but still totally plausible for a 1990s beat ’em up, right down to the color palette. As a video game nerd, these little details matter. Almost everything in the film is something you would have actually seen in a ’90s game: the cutscene dialogue, the stiff action, the goofy uniforms, even the celebratory poses. I played games like this as a kid. The level of detail here surpasses films with much bigger budgets.
The second thing is the aesthetics. The style is just incredible—the lighting, the candy-colored purples and blues, the CRT display. Granted, the small pink CRT they use isn’t typical, but it’s plausible. Low-budget VOD films have reached a point where the effects look incredible, and even though this movie is five years old now, it still looks like a million bucks. Compare the practical effects and animations here to big-budget sci-fi films from 20 or 30 years ago, and it’s amazing what they were able to accomplish on what was clearly a small budget. No one’s going to mistake this for Star Wars or a Marvel movie, but for what they had to work with, they pulled off a lot.
Another thing I love is the characters. They’re all unique, they all have different motivations, and they’re all fun—over-the-top, but fun. The bounty hunter? A riot. The main villain, Revenger? There are multiple bad guys, but Revenger stands out. There’s even a side plot involving Sarah’s dad trying to shut off the video game, and when his secret is revealed, it put a huge grin on my face.
And one of the funniest touches? Max Cloud, this brash, macho, chauvinistic action hero, never wanted to be a space-faring savior. His dream all along was to be a pastry chef.
Perhaps the best touch? The soundtrack. I want it on vinyl. It’s synth-laden, gets the blood pumping, with a few rock tunes thrown in for good measure.
Of course, not everyone loves this film, and I get why. The biggest issue is probably the marketing. The poster prominently features Scott Adkins as Max Cloud, which attracted a lot of Adkins fans expecting high-octane martial arts action.
Before watching this, I didn’t even know who Scott Adkins was, but apparently, he’s a big deal in direct-to-DVD action films. People went in expecting wild, over-the-top fight scenes, and while the film does have some, they’re stylized to fit the video game theme. Plus, Adkins isn’t even the main character, despite his name being front and center on the poster. If you’re expecting a typical Scott Adkins action flick, you might feel misled.
Then there’s the humor. A lot of the jokes require some knowledge of ’90s video games—specifically, 16-bit games. If you don’t have that context, some of the humor might not land. The film is intentionally campy and ridiculous, but some people just don’t get that. If there’s no laugh track telling them when to laugh, they won’t realize it’s supposed to be funny. It’s wild to me that so many people completely miss the humor, but they do. And if you went in expecting a serious Scott Adkins action film, the campiness would probably just annoy you.
The other big reason people dislike Max Cloud? It’s a B movie. It doesn’t have a big budget. Personally, I love B movies—most of the time, I prefer them to blockbusters. When I watch them, I appreciate what they’re able to do with the budget they have. That’s part of the charm. It’s why I love old Roger Corman films like Little Shop of Horrors, Battle Beyond the Stars, and Death Race 2000. No one mistook those for big studio productions, but they were still a blast, and Max Cloud is the same way.
Well Go USA made this film, and they have an interesting history. The studio was founded by a Taiwanese-American woman in 1989, and they started out making karaoke videos—if you’ve ever been to a karaoke bar and seen those music videos playing in the background, you’ve likely seen Well Go’s early work. Eventually, they branched out into indie films and built a reputation for martial arts, action, and horror. Max Cloud hasn’t found a huge audience, but it really should because it’s just so much fun.
I also think this is director Martin Owen’s best film so far. He’s made other low-budget movies like Killers Anonymous, Let’s Be Evil, and L.A. Slasher, but Max Cloud is the one that feels like it was made with the most love and passion.
So, do I recommend Max Cloud? Absolutely. It’s a blast. I can’t wait to watch it on Blu-ray with my kid. While I understand that it’s not for everyone, it’s definitely a movie for me.
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