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REVIEW: 'Max Payne' fails as a game-to-movie adaptation
STARS: 2/5
Andrea Kahn
Issue date: 10/21/08 Section: Focus
Answer this if you would: should video games ever be made into movies? Don't even think about it. The answer is no; but even though it shouldn't happen, it does. Not surprisingly, "Max Payne" falls headlong into the disappointing videogame-to-movie pile.
You don't even have to have played the game to know the basic idea: happy police officer has happy wife and daughter, then the happy police officer comes home one day to find them slaughtered. Happy police officer becomes grouchy, introverted police officer and develops single-minded obsession with tracking the killers down; wears black leather coat.
The film centers its action around that fateful day while attempting to flesh out a story of its own, throwing in corporate giants, a mysterious blue drug, and cool-looking CGI valkyries for good measure. There is still the same hard-boiled revenge story from the game (for better or for worse), but Paine is taken down a different bloody trail this time around. The question now is, should we bother to come along again?
Here's the problem: watching this movie is like watching a very tired puppy - you know it has the potential to be fun, but it just doesn't have the energy to get up and be interesting. The movie feels so impossible at times that it was hard to even chalk it up to just being 'entertaining'. There's a scene when Paine and his semi-sidekick Mona Sax (Mila Kunis) inquire about the significance of a wing in a tattoo parlor, and by some stroke of luck, the man has a giant book about Norse mythology on his desk. Paine never reloads his gun, even though he shot it a couple dozen times. Almost every scene that took place inside a rundown, abandoned complex has giant flickering lights for no reason other than to say "Wow, look, that's so cool." Though it stays slightly true to the plot of the video game, the overall feeling of suffocation and pain for the protagonist is thrown out the window. In its stead, there are hammy sepia flashbacks and heated arguments in the rain (Why didn't they argue in the car? They were right next to it). Also, there is little-to-no bullet time.
Mark Wahlberg is a believable version of the character, but mostly since he keeps the signature "I just sucked on a lemon" Max Payne face throughout the movie. Kunis is solid as the resident "hottie with a giant gun," though her relevancy in the story is never quite explained. Ludacris is also in the movie as Jim Bravura, which is a breath of fresh air simply because Ludacris is really cool.
This is not a very good movie. All comparisons to the video game aside, it is just of poor quality. The acting is overly dramatic and the writing is sometimes so ridiculous and cliché that it was hard not to laugh aloud. There's no easy way to say this, but here it is. Don't see this movie. "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" is better.
You don't even have to have played the game to know the basic idea: happy police officer has happy wife and daughter, then the happy police officer comes home one day to find them slaughtered. Happy police officer becomes grouchy, introverted police officer and develops single-minded obsession with tracking the killers down; wears black leather coat.
The film centers its action around that fateful day while attempting to flesh out a story of its own, throwing in corporate giants, a mysterious blue drug, and cool-looking CGI valkyries for good measure. There is still the same hard-boiled revenge story from the game (for better or for worse), but Paine is taken down a different bloody trail this time around. The question now is, should we bother to come along again?
Here's the problem: watching this movie is like watching a very tired puppy - you know it has the potential to be fun, but it just doesn't have the energy to get up and be interesting. The movie feels so impossible at times that it was hard to even chalk it up to just being 'entertaining'. There's a scene when Paine and his semi-sidekick Mona Sax (Mila Kunis) inquire about the significance of a wing in a tattoo parlor, and by some stroke of luck, the man has a giant book about Norse mythology on his desk. Paine never reloads his gun, even though he shot it a couple dozen times. Almost every scene that took place inside a rundown, abandoned complex has giant flickering lights for no reason other than to say "Wow, look, that's so cool." Though it stays slightly true to the plot of the video game, the overall feeling of suffocation and pain for the protagonist is thrown out the window. In its stead, there are hammy sepia flashbacks and heated arguments in the rain (Why didn't they argue in the car? They were right next to it). Also, there is little-to-no bullet time.
Mark Wahlberg is a believable version of the character, but mostly since he keeps the signature "I just sucked on a lemon" Max Payne face throughout the movie. Kunis is solid as the resident "hottie with a giant gun," though her relevancy in the story is never quite explained. Ludacris is also in the movie as Jim Bravura, which is a breath of fresh air simply because Ludacris is really cool.
This is not a very good movie. All comparisons to the video game aside, it is just of poor quality. The acting is overly dramatic and the writing is sometimes so ridiculous and cliché that it was hard not to laugh aloud. There's no easy way to say this, but here it is. Don't see this movie. "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" is better.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Nasdaq7
posted 10/25/08 @ 7:10 PM EST
I feel one shouldn't blast the movie if it wasn't that bad. So what the producers / writers / directors had a unique take on Max Payne? Who cares... I'll still go and watch the next Max Payne, Batman and I can't wait for the next Punisher - if they ever make one. (Continued…)
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