Rating: Popcorn
Max Payne is a maverick cop - a mythic anti-hero - determined to track down those responsible for the brutal murders of his family and partner. Hell-bent on revenge, his obsessive investigation takes him on a nightmare journey into a dark underworld. As the mystery deepens, Max is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world and face an unthinkable betrayal.
Oscar® nominee Mark Wahlberg (The Departed) stars as Max Payne, a man who has little regard for rules - and nothing to lose - as he investigates a series of mysterious murders that could be tied to the death of his wife and child. But there are massive forces, both real and beyond imagination, that are conspiring to keep the devastating truth hidden - and Max forever silenced.
Based on the video game and written by first-time screenwriter Beau Thorne, Max Payne also stars Mila Kunis (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Olga Kurylenko (Hitman), Chris “Ludacris” Bridges (RocknRolla) and Beau Bridges (Norma Rae). Behind the camera of this dark action-thriller is John Moore, who is well-known for his directorial work in Behind Enemy Lines, Flight of the Phoenix and The Omen.
Going to the theatre, I was expecting an action-packed thriller filled with bullets flying, slow motion shooting sequences and an overall feel from the original 2001 first-person shooter video game.
Does Max Payne live up to the expectations? It sure does! As John Moore sums it up, “This film is not ‘Minimum Payne’. And it’s not ‘Medium Payne’. It’s Max Payne!” There is no lack of gun action in the film as several hundred rounds of ammunition are fired within the last half hour alone. Not wanting to copy the frequently used “bullet-time” extreme slow-motion process that was spawned by The Matrix, Moore decides to use a cutting-edge motion picture camera, The Phantom, to shoot the slow motion bullet sequences in a new way. He describes The Phantom as “basically a digital hard drive that can shoot up to a thousand frames a second.” Director John Moore and screenwriter Beau Thorne incorporate the same dark feel and look from the video game into the movie, but with much better CG.
Max Payne might meet all my previous expectations, however it does focus too much on Max Payne hunting down his wife and Alex’s killer while not spending enough time on his revenge. Will it top the box office this weekend? Yes it will, ousting Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua from its two-week reign. This video game-based film specially targeted to male gamers will open the doors to more movie adaptations of video games. 20th Century Fox’s Max Payne is now playing in theatres.
Have you seen it yet? Please leave a comment about what you thought of the film.
Release Date: October 17, 2008
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Eyes_for_Hands
I saw Max Payne last night and was not only disappointed but disgusted. The look of the film is good but lacks any real motion. And the script must have been terrible because they had no idea what they were doing. It made me wonder if anyone besides the set designers had played the game.
The score is forgettable, unlike the game’s score which still sticks with me and it has been years. And they pretty much threw away every good idea they started with.
There are a few action scenes toward the end that are worth seeing but it doesn’t make up for the rest of the film that drags and does everything to keep the viewer from actually caring.
Oct 18th, 2008
Brian Fitzpatrick
I have to say that this was a big disappointment for me also. If you’d seen the trailer, you’d seen all the good parts and the surprises were underwhelming. I was hoping for a Constantine-ish cop flick and ended up with drug-induced hallucinations. Ugh.
Oct 21st, 2008
Jean Brunet
What a lot of people (mostly gamers) were expecting was a movie that looked, felt and had everything the game had, but they ended up being disappointed with the final product. You can’t do a direct video-game-to-film conversion because it would be the exact same thing we saw already almost 10 years ago. A lot of the things in the film were taken from the original game, but the filmmakers had to add some new things to make the film stand alone from the game. There are many things that could be improved, but it is still an ok movie, not the best that we expected.
Oct 23rd, 2008
mads bladtkramer
I think you should have mentioned, that the storyline is exactly the same, as the game.
The movie (almost) starts in the subway, and ends on the helipad-rooftop. We see the exact same flashbacks, to the former home of Max Payne – where you see his dead wife lying on the bed, but off course with no blood what so ever. The discotheque set, uses the exact same kind of candlelit “spookie” vibe as the game. When I had seen about 5 min. of this movie, I knew exactly what was going to happen, as did the rest of the game fans in the theatre. In my world, Max Payne has been one of my favourite games, and without a doubt, one of the most action packed *** kicking gameplays I have ever played, however the movie has no action sequences worth mentioning.
I think saying that Beau Thorne did a bad job is kind of wrong, I would say he did no job at all.
My opinion: Exact same storyline, same plot-twist, same god damn Aesir building, no kick *** action (when he goes to Rag Na Rog, Mona spends like 5 years telling him how dangerous this is going to be – when he gets there, and you expect one man army *** kicking, he kills like 3 and has a “boss fight” for like 2 seconds.. What the britneyspears is going on?), in the game you use bullet time every five seconds just because it is so awesome – in the movie I think we see the bullet time 2 times? And finally – you can’t possibly take Mila Kunis (from That 70’s show and family guy) serious, I feel like punching Ludacris and get Nelly Furtado on a plane to cantact.
I was really looking forward to this movie..
Mads B.
Oct 27th, 2008
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