What is it about video game adaptations lately? Hitman took everything that was great about the character in the game and dumped it for a drab action movie by numbers affair. And sadly Max Payne continues the tradition and delivers an instantly forgettable flick that even Mark Wahlberg looks bored acting in, let alone the people watching it.
Anyone who has played the game knows the story, cop loses his wife and daughter and aims to find who murdered them whilst constantly talking to the gamer in a hardboiled private detective kind of way. Well, it seems the test audiences didn’t like that because it has almost completely disappeared.
And worse still the film then commits the worst sin of them all… takes away the very reason the game was so great… bullet time!! I know the Matrix invented this but Max Payne is such a great game because you can slow down time before you start shooting, yet the film barely uses it!! Why even bother associating with a brand if you’re not going use the reason it stands out from the crowd in the first place??
It looks very Sin City-esque and at least it isn’t overlong but there is far too much discussion and very little action and when it all goes very Constantine in the final act, you just yawn as the murderer (signposted clearly after 10 mins in a Murder She Wrote “Spot the only other famous name” kind of way) is revealed and then dispatched.
Has done well at the box office so potentially they could get it right for the sequel but for now this will be classed under “missed opportunity”.
Popularity: 47% [?]
Leave a Reply