User Reviews

This fun but pretty average episode is 'adapted' from the Horror Head play-set "Mighty Max Zaps Beetlebrow", which does not look a whole lot like the impressively designed, huge and powerful ancient guardian machine of a tiny alien civilisation that appears in this, although a certain figurine that came with the toy does bear more than a passing resemblance! It's a bit of a lame episode really, which to me is mainly due to the plot, which is pretty far-fetched and really hard to swallow. It actually asks that you buy the idea of aliens that just happen to be almost the exact same shape and size of Earth beetles that were stranded on Terra eons ago and survived by blending among our own insects until a rescue craft could finally arrive to take them back to their own world. And the way they suggest it in the story, is that it's not so much that nobody ever communicated with or saw one, but that nobody even ever realised what it was they were looking at, for whoever would care to see a lowly insect as anything more than that? It is admittedly an interesting idea, just one that I believe doesn't work that well here. And I am pretty darn sure that the X-Files lifted the idea for their own story that was called "War of the Coprophagus", you heard it here first folks! It features Max's annoying, sassy friend "Bea" a lot, which is good, the way they tried to give her a bigger role in an episode, but I never cared for this minor supporting character who never appears to be really attracted to Max, even though she was obviously jealous of the smart dumb blonde Jiffy in "Snakes and Laddies." And what the hell was that when she called Virgil chicken? What I thought was the most visually impressive animation of the episode was of the vast insect swarms that go on the attack. They looked strange, they're meant to be untold millions of the flying beetle-like aliens, but the effect looks more like purple smoke, but it does work. It was a nice quick homage to "The Birds" in the scene where the beetles start invading the house. And there was something else about the animation that I didn't like at all. It was the facial reactions of some of the characters, they were noticeably more cartoony than usual. Thank goodness that didn't become a regular occurrence. The animation of the show in general was just a web of contradictions, sometimes looking horribly rough and dated, while a lot of the times it was thankfully richly detailed, the animated action was generally always very well done and fluid. I liked the genus swap in the scene where everybody's flying in the plane and spreading insecticide on the gigantic swarm, and then Beetlebrow dives in and flies above and gases them! And also, in the scene on the spaceship where Max Bea and Virgil are sealed in a giant glass specimen jar! It's not one of my favourites, but it does have one or two great lines. It made me laugh at the end when everyone's doing this goofy dance to communicate to Beetlebrow that the residents of planet Earth are intelligent and don't deserve to be exterminated, and Max encourages Norman to join in, 'lest he appear antisocial! And it was about time someone reacted to the sight of Virgil as any rational person would at the spectacle of a walking-talking cowled chicken man! It's really not bad, but still kind of bland, and I'm not much of a fan of this one.. Fun enough, but a little weak. Love ya, now buzz off!