Max Payne

Poor Mark Wahlberg. Ever since he obtained a fully deserved Oscar nomination for The Departed, he has struggled to hit it as big again: Shooter was enjoyable but unmistakably shallow, We Own the Night received very mixed reactions, and The Happening was one of the most unjustly panned movies of 2008 (well, minus the plastic plant scene). None of those, however, is as bad as Max Payne, which just about tails The Truth About Charlie for the title of Wahlberg's career low. But hey, few people expected Payne to be any good in the first place. For starters, it's based on a video game, and those never turn out well on film. Secondly, it's directed by John Moore, whose body of work is all but encouraging (he remade The Omen, for crying out loud). Plus, it comes off as a mix of fantasy, action and revenge thriller - in short, a mess. For those not familiar with the game, the story centers on the titular cop (Wahlberg), a brilliant homicide detective who's been reassigned after the brutal murder of his wife and kid. When a Ukrainian girl (Olga Kurylenko) is found dead with his wallet in her pocket, he's immediately charged with the murder, and the only way to clear himself is to find a thug named Lupino (Amaury Nolasco), who might even have something to do with Mrs. Payne's death (go figure..). With some minor adjustments, this could easily be the latest installment of Death Wish. If only things were that simple: the plot is twisted even more with a subplot concerning a mind-altering drug called Valkyr, which makes everything look like Hell on screen and destroys Norse mythology's credibility off screen. Then again, decent scripts are rare when it comes to this sort of flick, so Moore is supposed to redeem himself with visuals and action scenes: in the first case, he delivers more than enough; in the second, he disappoints, and big time - not counting the first ten minutes and the last twenty, there's a serious lack of pace and ass-kicking. Last but not least, the acting. Wahlberg does pretty much the same he did in Shooter: gritty and watchable, but never exploits his huge potential. Mila Kunis, who plays the "Payne girl" (sorry, couldn't resist), is totally miscast, being too young and with the wrong background (That '70s Show), except for the fact that she is of Ukrainian descent like her on-screen sister Kurylenko. Beau Bridges, generally a fine presence, manages the unenviable task of becoming worse as the picture progresses, and Nolasco's villain is as lifeless as they come (and let's not even get started on Ludicrous' "acting"). Long story short: if this were a game, it would reach the "Game over" stage after twenty minutes. Compared to this, even Tomb Raider looks decent enough.

Oh Max Payne… What unfortunate series of events were put into motion to make you such a bad film? First, the writing; knowing full well that is a movie adapted from a video game that is derivative of other films. However, as a popcorn flick, you don't expect to be challenged mentally, you see it to get your violently happy smile on. That's it. It's a simple escapist pleasure to see a movie that's dumb, but fun. The formula is that simple. Shed those completely unnecessary layers that may slow down the action and instead insert bravado into the spots between the action scenes. Crank is a good example, there's very little to that movie aside from stay hyper and kick ass. So the first problem with Max Payne is heavy handed and droning attempt to develop a two dimensional character… Why? It's not like Max Payne needs a lot of development, he's a dude with a vengeance on, shut up and let it happen. Instead you're walked through all of these really bad scenes filled wit the worst dialogue put to page. It's like watching soft-core blue movies without a nut to bust. That's just the first 20 minutes. The movie continues, but first let me tell you how they open the film, because it really set the bar for the rest of really badness of it all. We open on a man walking down a hallway towards a door cracked open and light bleeding through it… A baby is crying in the distance. The man moves closer to the door and on that door a big sign reading "Baby" is hung on it. First off, I ma not sure why, if they're assuming that an audience is that dumb; they didn't just put a big old title on the screen, or put an interpreter up there to point and say "Hey, there's an Freakin' BABY in there!" I know it ties with the video game, but this is an adaptation, some changes for the sake of not raping the audience's intelligence have to be made. And, believe me, it doesn't stop there, the film is filled with some of the most heavy handed art direction, really bad sound design and some of the worst editing I've seen since Live Free Die Hard. It's that bad. Later on in the film Max and the Mila Kunis playing a Russian girl supposed to move plot, but ultimately becomes a tragic and unfulfilled, unresolved and disjointed piece of the movie; well they stop into a goth tattoo parlor, where they go through a catalogue of tattoo's and stop on the reoccurring one they see. They question the proprietor and at the drop of the dime he pulls out an old book about Norwegian mythology and starts talking about Valkyrie's, the symbol and the significance of the mark/tattoo. This brief wikipedia presentation ends with such a blatant inconsistency with Mark Walberg/Max Payne asking one more question and then the shop proprietor responding with a really big and dumb "Huh?" So in one single turn he goes from Mythology and theology expert into dumb goth guy. The movie spends so much time building to a conflict, but without any tension, just trivial scene after scene. There were points in the movie that we were really laughing, but they really weren't supposed to be funny. Dramatic tension was the goal, but the exact opposite occurred. In particular Mila Kunis talking to Max about how much of a dark time bomb he is. The dialogue is SO poorly written that the scene becomes comedic. Beau Bridges line in the end is also laughably bad. Other miserable notes… Chris O'Donnell, Yep, bad. Nelly Furtado's cameo… Was one of the most laughably bad moments on the screen and the first shot of Ludicrous, was also really funny. Like, really, really funny. I guess some things that should have been aborted are born, and Max Payne is one that is prospering. Which is really unfortunate.

Let me first just say that I AM a fan of the video game. So I, like others who have commented on here already, was really just looking for a fun action movie. I didn't expect it to be Oscar worthy or anything like that...just a fun time at the movie theater. That being said...I was extremely disappointed at this movie. Actually, that's being nice about it. This was such a poorly executed story that I nearly walked out. Seriously, seriously bad. The visuals were nice, but even THOSE were too stylized and even painfully funny to watch at times (most of the time). It seemed they were trying too hard. And for an action film, there sure was a lack of action for the first 3/4 of the movie. Now the acting...I honestly felt I was watching a student film with some of those scenes. Ludicrous was just that. Mark Wahlberg was OK at best. Donal Logue - awful, Mila Kunis - out of place...the only bright spots were Chris O'Donnell and Olga Kurylenko (who is smoking hot). Bottom line...I would not recommend this movie to anybody. I'm not even sure how this got made to be honest. Especially with the amount of money that was poured into it. Amazingly bad.

The main surprise is that this screen-version of "Max Payne" dares to defy the "subjective 3D shooter VG" heritage, attempting to sketch a content movie about the agony of a deeply hurt and virtually invincible detective - the "Angel Heart" quotes are obvious, mainly in the snowfall shots. John Moore's directing is stylish and compelling, although marred by some awkward moments - the worst being the Valkyries, as convincing as a bunch of half-humanoid crows with Xmas-tree lights as eyes, who torn to pieces a chick, throw a dude of the window, and further don't solve anything more, except flapping their wings in the background when the hero suffers the throes of his conscience conflicts. Although not by far as rewarding as "Shoot 'em Up!", "Wanted" or "Eagle Eye", the movie offers an expressive visual show, worth at least the admission money, if not also two hours of your life. A word to the wise: endure the final credits (very well done, by the way) to the end: you will be nicely sent to the sequel.

Max Payne was a very slow moving movie for the first part of the movie. The reason why it was slow though is because it was explaining the story of the movie. The story was very good and kept going with it all the way until the very end. The last half of the movie really kicks it up and has a ton of action. I liked all of the special and visual effects. Their were many slow motion scenes that made the movie cool. The visuals were very good and many of them were shots of tall long buildings. Mark Whalberg was very good and did a stellar job as Max Payne. Mila Kunis was good as well for the amount of screen time she gets. The movie had many great fun action scenes to watch. The movie in ways was kind of sad. They had many flashbacks throughout the movie. Overall the movie does lack and flaw a lot of things but its pretty good.

So I had tickets for avaunt premiere of max payne so without second thoughts I went to see it. From fun's point of view: I was very enthusiastic about the movie also. Trailers I saw indicate that the movie was going to be very close to what the first game was all about....Oh boy how wrong I was. What was in store for me was 90mins of a movie without meaning or sense to some points. First things first. Atmosphere:, the scenes where so messed up you couldn't actually feel the max payne atmosphere. They where some good scenes and some similarities with the game but only 2-3 scenes, nothing more, all the rest is bad scripting and directing. Acting: Mark Wahlberg seems to have a fever after The Happening, he fails to deliver the expressions of a man who had all the tragedies fall upon him..he was to calm and you know Max Payne can't stay calm! Mila Kunis, fails to deliver as Mona. In the game, Mona played a big role into Max Payne's life, something which don't happen here and Mona play's maybe the smallest part in the movie. I won't say about the villains because its like spoiling the movie. But let me say this, I still don't know if there where any villains at all. You'll see what I mean when you see the movie yourself. Action: When you hear "Max Payne" you can only think of one word: "Massacre" Shootings here and there, shoot first ask questions later, bodies flying around, and slow motions. OK from a 90 mins movie or so, 10 mins of combined action scenes is unacceptable for Max Payne. If you erase the bullet time you get 8 mins of shooting. All and all the action scenes where good although without blood, they were great and in combination with nice FX. You going to say now, "okey all good so far but 10 mins of action scenes? are you kidding me? what where they doing in the rest of the film?" well apparently they where asking questions first and shoot later. Sound: Sound was the best thing about the movie, the sound FX where amazing but even more amazing was the theme, the music was nicely placed into the movie, too bad the movie wasn't good for that music. From a none-fun point of view you might enjoy this film or hate it. But I'm certain you will like it more than those who have played the game.

Who cares if the plot is different from the game. This being an adaptation it is to be expected. What i do want to see is that the essence of a game is captured. And without any hesitation I can say that is not the case. "Max Payne" the game was a tribute to classic John Woo movies starring "Chow Yan Fat" like "Hard Boiled" and "The Killer" which contained beautifully choreographed action scenes filmed in slow motion. Everyone who had seen one of those movies wanted to be the gun blazing "Chow Yan Fat". The game made that possible. The good plot is one of the key elements that provided the special ambiance that made the game stand out from other shooters. However it was not the reason why people played the game. And somehow a lot of people including the ones who made this awful movie missed that point. Bullet Time was the main character in Max Payne the game. Without it Max Payne would never had been as popular as it is now. In the movie there are maybe two and a half scenes where events are slowed down. I know that we are spoiled after "The Matrix Trilogy" and several other movies. But how can you exclude it like they did if it plays such an important role. And even if I can forgive them for not using the bullet time effect as much as I wanted to. Why not offering action scenes a la "Shoot em up". At least then I would have gotten a fraction of what this movie supposed to show. There are many other topics and flaws I could mention and discuss. But since the action element was the most important one I see no point in going deeper!

I never thought it was possible to turn a story that great into such a terrible movie... First let me say I loved the games, I love action movies, crime movies, film noir and thrillers, film noir and thrillers, but I hate this film, I really hate it. It is nothing like it should be, everything is missing - the drama, the violence( which really is an important part of the tragical tale of max payne), the dark humor, the characters... everything. Max payne is the tale of a man who looses everything, who doesn't care about anything but personal justice any more and just fights his way through, getting in a worse condition every minute - he gets beaten up, he gets shot and drugged and yet he never gives up. Personally I found many aspects of max payne in sin city. The Max Payne movie however is like the children's edition, there is no pain, no blood( red is the third color next to black and white that is actually needed in max payne), no great bullettime actions, no film noir. The great characters from the game seem all ridiculous, like nicole horn (the evil mastermind) acts like the friendly ant from next door, BB is not nearly the cool suit he should be, no alfred wooden !?, jim bravura needs to be that old wasted guy from the game - and also the extremely precious sideline characters like vinnie (who was such fun to meet in the game) seem all wrong. When they would just have filmed game scene after game scene, level for level the would have provided a better story. The included the wrong unimportant plots from the game but ignored the stuff that really matters. They should have let the guy who cut the trailer make the film, cause it was really an awesome trailer that actually captured a pretty good image of the original Max Payne style. The great funny scenes are gone completely too, you never have to laugh at all, nothing like a gansta in a capt. baseball bat suit... Really, really terrible. The 2 points I give because there are actually some nice images like the valkyries and the drug trips - and because of the super gorgeous Natascha^^ (sister of mona) ... who max did not sleep with, another reason to hate the movie, one of many though...

Mark Wahlberg plays popular game hero Max Payne, a cop who sets out to find the man who killed his wife and child, while doing so he uncovers a potential conspiracy that could lead him to the killer. While Max Payne boasts a great tone, atmosphere and great cinematography, the overall film wasn't really all that great, the acting was tough to judge, there were some good performances but the actors seem like they didn't have much to work with, the action scenes are minimal, and was just a ton of shooting and they weren't all that exciting, however if you are interested in this film, you can watch it, but I feel that there are better options. Without comparing it to the game, I felt they could have done more to make it a bit more interesting and exciting, and possibly add more to Max Payne's back story and they could've been more inventive with the action scenes instead of making people just shoot at each other. Otherwise, its a good concept and is well shot, but the execution needed a little more work.

A movie shouldn't really be rated on its quality as an adaptation. Rather it should be rated on character development, storytelling, suspense, etc. Honestly, this story had potential. I was decently intrigued for about the first 15 minutes. But that just makes it worse because it got my hopes up. I'm not sure why I sat through it. The ending was utterly predictable.. and not the kind that makes you feel clever for figuring it out. I knew who the 'bad guy' was the second he walked on screen. The only reason I gave it 3/10 was because I watched the Unrated Edition, which, in my experience, often means "this movie sucks!" (In other words I AM giving the benefit of the doubt.) So, why did I watch this version??? I don't know ask, Axxo... Don't waste your money OR your bandwidth!