Rockstar Games' double-gunned action franchise comes to the big screen thanks to director John Moore (The Omen) and Mark Wahlberg, who embodies the title character of Max Payne, a widowed cop hell-bent on delivering justice no matter what the cost as he investigates a string of killings in his city. Mila Kunis and Chris O'Donnell head up the supporting cast, with Beau Thorne adapting the screenplay for the 20th Century Fox production. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
You can't help but wonder where the fine actor in The Departed and even Invincible has gone. It's not been a good year for Wahlberg: First The Happening, and now this.
Maybe somebody decided the movie was already so convoluted and leaden that throwing in a few swooping, screeching valkyries could only help. They do not.
The moviegoers are passive hostages on a long ride they've taken so many times before. So gameboys are advised to man their PlayStations this weekend; action-movie fans in search of red meat can wait for the inevitably more graphic DVD version.
The willfully absurd action sequences help the movie slog along, but slog it does, right through to the obligatory after-credits scene to establish the possibility of a franchise.
Based on a Finnish shoot-em up video game, Max Payne is all style and little story, cheerless detective Max (Mark Wahlberg) drifting through a washed out and snowy New York in search of his wife's killer.
A detective story, a pharmaceutical miracle drug and winged creatures from some demonic dimension sprouting like weeds in the spring. Too much and too artificial.
[A]ll [the] wide-open possibilities about where this story can go get so narrowed down into something banal and bleak and ordinary that you can hardly breathe with it...
John Moore directs the hell out of the action, while Jonathan Sela's glistening photography captures the snow and rain that fall on these bloody New York streets. But you'd have to be on crack not to guess the 'surprise' finale.
Having never played to game on which it's based I have nothing to go on as far as adaptation goes but I'm not sure if that matters so much does it!? Anyway, I liked the noir style of this film - the darkly lit alleyways, the no-mans land of New York's side streets and the lingering snow, continually floating throughout
the film were all nice touches. I even thought the CGI demons/dark angels were done well. Also, the acting was fine - Mark Wahlberg isn't the worlds greatest actor but he's likable and that's what gets him through. I thought Chris "Ludacris" Bridges was quite good though and deserved a bigger role. The only real problem and unfortunately the most important thing to get right in a film, was the story. It was uninteresting and predictable. I can't see a sequel happening.
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