Max Mordon is the main antagonist of the computer-animated Spanish movie Tad, the Lost Explorer from 2012. He is an famous archaeologist, who later turns out to be a mercenary allied with Oddyseus Inc who seeks to find the Idol of Paititi in order to gain immortality. He is secretly Kopponen's boss.
History[]
Little is known about Max Mordon's past, except that he has allied himself with the evil treasure hunting organization called Oddyseus Inc and aims to get the golden idol of Paititi to achieve eternal life. Max also became the best archaeologist in the world on TV.
In the film Max Mordon is idolized by the hero, Tad Stones, a bricklayer who dreams of being an adventurous explorer like him, calling himself his number one fan. Mordon is also dating Sara Lavrof, who joins Tad on his adventure to help him protect Paititi's gold idol, which is being hunted by the Oddyseus, (led by Kopponen). Sara had even thought of marrying Max Mordon much to Tad's jealousy, as he was also in love with Sara.
Max however is rejected in the scientific community, being considered a joke in bad taste, with real archaeologists such as Tad's friend, Professor Miguel Humbert, and Sara's father, Professor Lavrof, showing little respect for the Mordon's recklessness, as he seems to be more interested in preserving his celebrity image than doing real archaeology.
However, Max is actually an evil and corrupt mercenary who poses as an archaeologist to hide his true goals, and pretends to be kidnapped by the Odysseus to others doesn't discover his goals. When the Oddyseus are in the Inca desert trying to find the Paititi temple, they have been digging for 24 hours but they find nothing. Max suspects that Professor Lavrof had lied to them and asks Kopponen to make him confess.
After Max secretly orders the Odysseus to take out Freddy and Tad, his true nature is discovered by Tad. During the temple journey, Tad exposes Max's true intentions to Sara. Max asks Sara not to believe Tad as he is a liar, and then reveals Tad is not the brilliant archaeologist he claims to be, but a bricklayer, but Max also accidentally reveals his own true nature to Sara, causing her to find out that Max is the mastermind behind the Oddyseus, he kidnapped her father and tried to kill Freddy and Tad. Sara slaps Max in his face, angrily breaking off their engagement. However, Max doesn't hesitate to hold Sara and Tad at gunpoint as he orders his men to follow the way.
As the group travels through the temple, several booby traps go off, causing Max to lose Kopponen and his remaining henchemen. However, Max searches for Paititi's idol on his account, and after stealing a giant golem from the Mummy, he fights Tad until he is ultimately defeated. But unfortunately, Max gets hold of the golden statue and achieves the immortality. However, in exchange for eternal life, he ends up turned into a Mummy, much to his horror.
Max demands that there be an antidote to the spell, only to discover with horror that his transformation is permanent. Tad then glares Max, and grabs him by the neck after he calls him "Toad". Just then, a couple of Mummies of Paititi arrive and take Max to the darkest cell from Mummies' prison to eternal jail as punishment for his actions. As Max is dragged off to jail, he screams in agony at his sealed fate as he demands to be released.
Max Mordon is currently imprisoned by the Mummies, and he may be serving a life sentence for eternity in the Mummies' prison.
Appearance[]
Max Mordon is a tall man with dark brown hair, blue eyes, a white safari shirt, green pants, and a red ascot around his neck. As a Mummy, Mordon is skinnier and ragged, with a bandaged body and very long fingernails.
Personality[]
Max initially appears as a famous archaeologist seen on TV and admired by the protagonist, Tad Stones, who is his number one fan and dreams of being a renowned explorer like him. Max was even called "The best archaeologist in the world". Mordon was even engaged to Sara Lavrof, being close to getting married. However, this is all a cover to hide his true nature: that of an evil man who turns out to be a corrupt mercenary who is in league with the evil organization Oddyseus Inc, led by Kopponen, and who aims to get his hands on the idol gold from Paititi to gain immortality.
To get to the Golden Indian, Max decided to kidnap his girlfriend's father (since Lavrof is the only one who can translate the ruins), and to hide his plans, he resorts to lies and deceit to prevent his alliance with Oddyseus from being discovered, even pretending to be kidnapped by the evil corporation. He even ordered Kopponen to interrogate Professor Lavrof for lying to them about the location of the Paititi temple and also to kill Tad and Freddy so they don't mess up his plan (And this is when Max finds out from Kopponen that Tad isn't an archaeologist like he said, but a bricklayer).
His nature is revealed as the group tours the temple, when Tad exposes Max's true plans to Sara, having seen him order the Odysseys to kill him along with Freddy. Max, at the same time, reveals to Sara that Tad is actually a laborer, thus revealing to Sara that Tad had lied to her. However, Sara discovers Max's true nature when one of the Odysseus called him "boss", realizing Max's true alliance with the Oddyseus in kidnapping her father, causing Sara to slapping him and break up with him. As a result, Max takes her and Tad hostage at gunpoint.
However, Max didn't mind losing Kopponen and his men during various booby traps set off by the Temple Mummy, and continued to search for Paititi's golden idol, fighting Tad and nearly killing him in the process. Although Max achieved eternal life by touching the golden statue, it turns out that immortality can only be granted to people by turning them into mummies, something Max didn't expect. He demanded an antidote against the spell, but to no avail as no antidote existed according to Professor Lavrof. Max was then taken by the Mummies of Paititi to the darkest cell in the Mummies jail, serving an eternal prison and agonizingly demanding to be released, even asking to call his representative when he appears on TV.
Trivia[]
- Despite being the film's main antagonist, Max is far less evil than his successor, Jack Rackham, as unlike Mordon, Rackham has no comical traits and is willing to kill his own henchmen.
- When it is thought that Max mistakenly called Tad "Toad", it is more likely that it was an insult, as Tad was called that by Max several times during the movie, last calling him "Toad" when he is a Mummy, so it may be that "Toad" is more of an insult.
- Max bears several similarities to Charles Muntz from Up, as both are initially introduced as famous celebrities that the protagonist admires, but are shunned by the scientific community (Tad with Max, and Carl with Muntz), but later turn out to be evil looking for a valuable objective that will have to be protected by the protagonists (Max looking for the Indio de Oro de Paititi to gain eternal life, and Charles looking to capture a bird named Kevin to expose it to the scientific community).
- It is never explained what happened to Max's show after his incarceration in Paititi, but it can be assumed that it was either canceled after his mysterious disappearance or received another star.
- Although he is stated to be serving an eternal life sentence in the prison of Paititi an the end of the first film, Mordon doesn't appear when the Mummy gets thrown into prison for returning from his exile at the credits scene of Tad, the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas. However, since the Mummy's cell wasn't that dark and had a light shining through the window, it can be deduced that Max is imprisoned in another cell: the darkest one, as the Mummy said in the first movie.