October 9, 2025
Max Garcia (JM Ibarra) is a 17 year-old high school student from Pinili, Ilocos Norte who lived with his mother Alicia (Rochelle Pangilinan-Solinap). He was a very active content creator on the PokPok app, where he posts live streams of himself as @BabyKana2dMax. He believes he is the son of superstar fantasy action actor Maximo Maniego (Vhong Navarro), best known for playing the superhero Boy Kana in a series of films.
When his girlfriend Marie May (Zairene Fernandez) suddenly dropped a bombshell on him, Max rode a bus to Manila to seek his father out, wanting to learn important life lessons which only a father can give. His quest did not go exactly as he was planning. However, he did discover new things about his parents, just in time to make an important decision between accepting responsibility or achieving a lifelong dream.
This film directed and co-written by Tim Rone Villanueva (his feature film debut!), was really light-hearted, fun and funny. There were clips of old Boy Kana films complete with glaring color quality and primitive special effects. There was also a great scene of Max breaking into his father's mansion depicted as a video game. Highlighting Pinili's cherished heritage cottage industry of weaving Inabel cloth was a very good touch.
This is the big screen debut of 2024 Pinoy Big Brother housemate JM Ibarra, and he goes straight to playing the lead role here. Good-looking and charismatic, Ibarra knew how to tickle the fancy of his female fans, yet he was also able to deliver the goods in the dramatic parts of the film. It was not clear though why he only saw his mother as his basher when she had obviously dedicated her whole life to raising him, yet he yearned for an absent father.
I only knew Rochelle Pangilinan-Solinap as one of the Sex Bomb Girls 20 years ago, and now here she is playing a mother to a teenager. She mostly played it serious here, and she did well as the emotional support of her son as he came of age. Playing a smaller yet marked role as Boy Kana's fan club leader Mother Betty is Irma Adlawan, particularly in that one delightful scene she had reminiscing with Max and Alice -- my most LOL scene of the whole film. 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment