Archenemy: Joe Manganiello's dark superhero movie deserves another shot

Archenemy mostly went unnoticed in 2020, but it’s worth a second look in 2025

There’s no denying that superhero movies are in a slump. Marvel Studios has had a particularly rough year, with well-reviewed films like Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four: First Steps struggling at the box office. Superman offered a glimmer of hope in 2025, but the future of the rebooted DCU is still murky at best with Warner Bros. up for sale. It all feels pretty dire for fans of the genre, but it’s easy to forget that, just five years ago, the situation was even worse.

Due to global pandemic and the resulting lockdowns, 2020 marked the first year since 2010 that Marvel didn’t release a new movie. Meanwhile, DC started off the year with Birds of Prey (a box-office flop) and closed it out with Wonder Woman 1984 (a straight-to-streaming fiasco). But while Princess Diana was getting all the attention on HBO Max, a much more interesting superhero film quietly slinked under our collective radar — even though it offered a much more interesting and prescient take on the genre.

Released on Dec. 11, 2020, Archenemy stars Joe Manganiello as Max Fist, a self-proclaimed superhero exiled from his own dimension. On the surface, Max looks more like an alcoholic who’s been living on the street, but his claims of lost superpowers and his determination to take down a local drug kingpin are enough to inspire a teenage boy named Hamster (Skylan Brooks) who’s desperate for something to believe in.

Archenemy was directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer, fresh off the success of his trippy psychological thriller Daniel Isn’t Real, and produced by Manganiello, along with Elijah Wood and a handful of others. Mortimer continues his mind-bending streak here, carefully walking the line between realism and fantasy so it’s never quite clear whether Max is actually a fallen god, or just a delusional drunk. (For what it’s worth, Manganiello himself settled the debate in an interview with Variety at the time.)

Speaking to The Mary Sue in 2020, Mortimer singled out comic-book icon Grant Morrison as the inspiration for Archenemy, praising the writer’s focus on intense emotions over action and his penchant for pushing the limits of immersion and breaking the fourth wall: “His sense of layers of reality, and that superheroes are not at their most interesting when they’re punching guys in a warehouse, they’re at their most interesting when they’re having incredible cosmic, almost religious experiences, like reality-redefining experiences.”

Mortimer achieves exactly this in Archenemy. The movie rewards repeat viewings, and it will make you question every scene. Its best moments aren’t combat-focused, they’re spiritual. Riffing on edgier Marvel movies like Deadpool and Logan, Mortimer explores a darker underbelly of the superhero genre that the comics had already been mining for decades but Hollywood wasn’t particularly interested in that particular moment.

Five years later, Archenemy feels like a prophecy of another dark moment for the superhero genre. At a time when nobody can say for sure whether Marvel will rebound from its current woes or the DCU will survive a politicized corporate merger, Mortimer’s bleak take feels particularly pertinent. Maybe we’re all putting too much faith in superheroes these days. Then again, maybe there’s nothing wrong with finding a bit of hope wherever you can, when it’s in short supply.

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Archenemy is streaming for free on Tubi.