So I finally watched this film, maybe it's the defeatist in me but i'm not even upset about it, it was so bad, it was hilarious to watch.

 

When I heard they were making a movie of Max Payne, one of my favorite video games of all time, I couldn't help but get excited. Despite the fact that with the possible exception of the Tom Raider films and Silent Hill and a few others all video game adaptations for the big screen have been miserable failures, I thought (or maybe just hoped) that they would get it right this time and make a movie that captured the quality of the Max Payne game series. The video game Max Payne is so well done: spot on voice acting, great Film Noir atmosphere, good writing, an intriguing protagonist, the list goes on and on. What could they possibly do to ruin the movie? All they needed to do was navigate the game's storyline, use the same characters, maybe even employ the same writers, and the result would be a pretty darn good movie.  I mean, Max Payne 2 even has the tagline, A Noir Love Story.

To sum up the rest of this review: they failed horribly and created a movie that is a sad, sad parody of the infinitely superior games.

Mark Wahlberg is a pretty good actor, and I was happy when I heard he had been cast as Max. He seemed a good fit for the part, and while I expected he might not plumb the depths of Max's character, I did think that he would be believable when delivering a good beat-down or using his signature dual pistols. Unfortunately, he looks bored in the film, and it leaves me wondering if his agent signed him up before explaining just what kind of movie this was going to be. Once he read the script, he just gave up.  However, it's not really his fault this movie is a flop. 

The responsibility for that rests on the shoulders of the writers and the director. The dialogue is atrocious. From over bearing to just plain silly, the whole thing sounds like two thirteen-year-olds play acting. Lines like "You have to finish this," are strewn throughout. Every time Max doesn't know what to do, some ominously worded phrase will send him off in another violent fit of "finding the answers."

The plot (if you can call it that) is a strange amalgamation of the original (they kept the drug Valkyrie, the brutal murder of Max' family, some of the characters and jacked up the importance of the hallucinations of the drug) and new elements that feel pieced together. There are so many plot holes and loose ends that even the sometimes imaginative action sequences lose their appeal. The movie just doesn't make sense. What makes even less sense: there may be a sequel.  

The character's which are used, are turned upside down alittle too, even Max Payne.  After the tragic murder of his family, in the game, he goes undercover and transfers to the DEA, and infiltrates the worst mafia crime family in the city. In the film, he becomes a cold cases office clerk, and just so happens to spend his free time chasing after leads on the murder of his family.  The most loyalty this gives to the game is shallow nods of locations, words or symbols, like the opening station.

Another example is Jack Lupino, in the game he is a high up in the mafia family that max was undercover in, which due to becoming addicted to the drug, loses it, and i mean loses it.  He starts up his own little cult in a den of a heavy metal nightclub fittingly called Ragnarok and performs all manner of good fun. In the film, he is almost made into a main protagonist and is made "superhuman" through being experimented on with the drug by the government, housted out of the army.

The game is a wonderful mix of vengeance, noir, crime epic, intense emotion, dark humour and john woo action flick. The film hardly scratched the surface of ANY of these.

 

To put it another way, the plot of the game has Max being chased by EVERYONE, the police, the mafia, and others from the shadows, at the sametime, investigating and blowing the hell out of the criminal underworld to find the answers he wants.  He is framed for murder, has nothing to lose, and through ODing on Valkyrie, tortured with a baseball bat, countless bullet wounds, he prevails through his sheer anger and will to withstand the pain.  It is a sprawling crime epic filled with intrigue and dark humour, with highly memorable monologues from max himself filled with metaphor.

The film, is just an echo, of max payne looking for the killer of his wife (they were just random junkies in the game) and teaming up with mona to find said killer, then he finds out "the truth".

 

The cinamatography I'll admit was actually quite nicely done for itself, tremendously dark, it's just a shame that the direction, and even editing spoil it.  I also thought the set work was pretty impressive, and the cityscape in general was impressive for being film in Canada.

 

I suspect this was also done to keep the rating down (though it got MA here, and pg13 in the states) but I was quite annoyed out how the actual drug, valkyrie was handled.  In game, it's no secret that it's out there, it's almost an epedemic of addiction which has hit the streets, with the police not able to cope, and max payne was fully aware that they were junkies which came to his house and killed his wife and baby.  It gave him the inspiration to go undercover and chase down the source of the drug. On a more basic level than that, the drug is actually INJECTED, not a family friendly blue liquid which looks like an energy drink which u just scoff down that we get in the film.

Do yourself a favor. Instead of watching this movie, get yourself a copy of Max Payne the video game and play that instead. I promise you it will be more fun.