In the 1960s Professor Ruckus Mandulbaum (Cary Elwes) created a revolutionary device known as a Titan Badge which tapped into its users DNA in order to unlock superpowers. Using his technology and resources, Ruckus scoured the world looking for orphans to adopt who he would raise as his family and mold them into a superhero team called the Hyperions. Now 1979, former Hyperion Vista (Penelope Mitchell) and her adoptive brother/ fellow former Hyperion Ansel (Alphonso McAuley) are estranged from their surrogate family and are now robbing the Hyperion Family Museum to steal the Titan Badges from the display case only to learn their secured with Ruckus' fingerprints. With no viable options Vista and Ansel take some hostages ending up in a standoff with the police and demand Ruckus come to the museum to unlock the badges. Meanwhile Ruckus and veteran Hyperion Maya (Elaine Tan) are dealing with recruitment of the third generation of Hyperions as well as retirement of the second all while trying to maintain the family's PR façade.
The Hyperions has had a long journey to distribution. Filmed and completed in 2019, the movie comes to us from Jon McDonald who's a relatively new director having directed the short film Chagrin as well as narrative feature Muddy Corman which appears to have never been released beyond the festival circuit. Picked up for distribution by Saban Films for a 2020 release, distribution stalled for unknown reasons and Saban eventually sold the rights to Bonfire Legend who in turn sold them Daily Wire in 2022 a full three years after the movie was finished. Taking the fact that Daily Wire is distributing this film out of the equation, The Hyperions is a solid film from a newish director with a promise of better things to come.
I will say that The Hyperions feels very reminiscent of the TV series The Umbrella Academy down to the mad scientist patriarch and the dysfunctional family of superhero children. Given The Umbrella Academy was filmed in 2018 and released in February of 2019 and The Hyperions was filmed in the Fall and Winter of 2019 it leads me to believe there was more than a little inspiration from that series on this film. With that said I think the movie does make itself unique through use of its period setting taking place in the late 70s in "present" and 60s in flashbacks and McDonald does a solid job of capturing the feel for those eras. I particularly enjoyed the usage of older animation styles used for certain expository scenes and the in-universe TV show featuring The Hyperions that has a very Wonderful World of Disney type vibe to the production which fits well with world the movie creates.
Cary Elwes is really good as Professor Ruckus Mandulbaum and plays the role like a mixture of Walt Disney and Dr. Charles Xavier. It's a solid performance that allows Elwes to balance the high camp with scenes of genuine family drama and there are moments of genuine heartbreak in the movie that resonate quite well. Penelope Mitchell also does quite well in the role of Vista, Ruckus' estranged adopted daughter and their dynamic that was shaped by the very public and controlled life she had that led to her having a rebellious streak and Ruckus' need to protect his legacy and image felt well-constructed and thematically rich. I also rather liked Alphonso McAuley as Vista's adoptive brother Ansel who's torn by being the "good son" and trying to support his sister despite orders of his father and the PR team to sever all ties with her which lead to him being estranged from his father and losing his position as a Hyperion.
Now there are some missteps the movie takes and they do make themselves hard to ignore. One of the major missteps taken is in a character who turns out to be (predictably) evil and their heel turn is handled pretty clumsily with only one scene to establish who they are which leads to the unveiling feeling very hollow with an air of "so what?". There are also points where the budgetary restraints make themselves pretty hard to ignore with a scene in the climax set up only to happen completely off camera feeling like a massive cheat to the audience, yes this is a low budget independent production, but they probably could've animated it or given us some comic book style stills to give us something. While watching The Hyperions I was reminded of another retro-sci-fi dramedy from about 10 years ago called Space Station 76 that billed itself as an homage to things like Space: 1999 only to end up being a social satire of the 70s that just happened to take place in space. There's a lot of overlap between Space Station 76 and The Hyperions and for me personally I liked how they took these extraordinary settings and made character pieces, but if you go in expecting strong superheroics you're going to be disappointed. Even the standoff between Vista and Ansel isn't played for tension as the hostages are pretty happy most of the movie and treat the situation as a minor inconvenience while being polite and cordial to their captors.
There's some solid work on display in The Hyperions from both director Jon McDonald and its solid cast. The movie looks really nice capturing the color pallet and aesthetic of the 60s and 70s and the family drama is rich and well conveyed by Cary Elwes, Penelope Mitchell, and Alphonso McAuley. What doesn't work as well is in the very budget conscious approach to the filmmaking with major sequences taking place entirely off camera and a rather underwhelming villain reveal. Despite these drawbacks, The Hyperions is a solid showcase of McDonald's talents as a filmmaker and I look forward to whatever he does next.
