With their days playing superheroes in the Arrowverse now behind them (mostly, anyway), relatives Stephen and Robbie Amell are in the process of launching a new franchise to call their own with Code 8. The whole thing began in 2016 with the viral short of the same name, which served as a teaser and sales pitch for a feature-length film the Amells were able to successfully crowd-fund through Indiegogo. And while the Code 8 movie’s premise is more interesting than its other elements, it’s handled well enough to warrant further exploration. Code 8 works better as a proof of concept than a standalone sci-fi thriller, serving up fascinating world-building with a fairly basic story.

Code 8 takes place in an alternate reality where 4% of the world’s population are born with super-powers, allowing them to do everything from read minds to manipulate electricity or, in rare cases, even heal other people physically. In the present-day, however, powered individuals like Connor Reed (Robbie Amell) - who lives in a crowded metropolis called Lincoln City with his sickly mother (Kari Matchett) - are forced to scrounge for work and discriminated against by the government, which uses drones and autonomous robots to support the police and keep them in check. As such, Connor can’t help but be tempted when he’s offered high-paying work by Garrett (Stephen Amell), a criminal who works for Lincoln City’s most infamous drug lord, Marcus Sutcliffe (Greg Bryk). But when Lincoln City cops Park (Sung Kang) and Davis (Aaron Abrams) realize Connor is carrying out crimes for Sutcliffe, it puts him and everyone he cares about in danger.

Overall, director Jeff Chan and his screenwriter Chris Pare (who also worked on the original short) do a nice job of introducing Code 8’s universe without getting bogged down in excessive or confusing exposition along the way. They’ve basically made a more grounded X-Men movie (complete with Sentinel-like robots policing the masses), but also one that’s thoughtful about what life would be like for working-class people who possess superheroic capabilities, yet don’t have a Charles Xavier-like benevolent leader to support them and give them a higher calling. The result in a standard dramatic thriller about characters who, faced with crippling economic anxiety and failing healthcare, turn to a life of crime… with the twist being they can also make lightbulbs glow with their bare hands or hurl objects across the room with their thoughts. It’s not the most ground-breaking allegory about the plight of lower-class individuals, yet it makes for a respectable variation on the theme.

Much like its plot, though, the characters in Code 8 are all distinctly cookie-cutter. Robbie and Stephen Amell play, respectively, the typical angry young man whose sensitive side comes out when he’s caring for his ailing mother, and the charismatic criminal who taps into his protege’s rage in order to mold him into a more capable minion (complete with a montage where Connor learns to master his powers). Unsurprisingly, though, the two have an easygoing chemistry that shines through into their onscreen relationship, even if there’s nothing particularly memorable about their actual characters. Something similar could be said for the film’s supporting players since, at the end of the day, Code 8 is more invested in developing its big ideas than its humans beyond Connor and Garrett. It mostly works, though, as those two are clearly meant to serve as the anchors for the Code 8 brand moving forward.

Another thing Code 8 has going for it is its lo-fi style, which lends itself to a film that’s all about making people with superhuman abilities seem realistic. The movie’s blend of sci-fi technology and desolate urban settings is reminiscent of Neill Blomkamp’s past work (especially District 9, given their thematic similarities), but avoids being excessively derivative and mostly just draws on the same tropes as his movies. All the same, Code 8 makes the most of its budgetary limits by being economic and having its characters primarily use their powers for practical purposes - like, say, shutting down an electrified fence or melting a lock - rather than spectacle for the sake of showing off some CGI. That’s to say, one might not even suspect this film was crowd-funded unless they already knew it was.

Chan, Pare, and the Amells are currently in the process of developing a Code 8 spinoff series for Quibi, which is to be expected given how much the movie feels like the beginning of something bigger and not a project that was supposed to be a one-off. But unlike other franchise starters, Code 8 smartly avoids getting ahead of itself and tells a simple, yet complete story that can, but doesn’t need to be continued. Not only that, it does well enough by its premise to justify a look on its own terms, especially for those who enjoyed the original ten-minute short. Heck, with Dark Phoenix having only come out in June, it’s not unfair to call Code 8 the best X-Men movie of the year.

Code 8 is now playing in theaters and is available to watch On Demand. It is 98 minutes long.