Max Payne

Luckily for me, I'm not a gamer and therefor not familiar with the game series the movie is based on, so I'm unable to compare.

Max Payne's wife and kid were brutally murdered, and the killer was never found. Max (Mark Wahlberg) is unable to let go and is still in search of the killer. Shortly after meeting Natasha at a party, Max becomes a suspect in her murder. Together with her sister, Mona (Mila Kunis) they start to unravel the mystery.

Max's wife worked for a company, Aesir, who developed a drug to make soldiers feel invincible. The first test subject was Jack Lupino (Amaury Nolasco), but the drug soon showed side effects and the project was terminated. Now the drugs are being used as a hallucinate, and addicts see winged creatures. These hallucinations are visually fantastic, and also rather creepy. The shadow effects are brilliantly done.

Speaking of visuals, 'Max Payne' is visually stunning. This film LOOKS amazing on screen. It is also beautifully shot; crisp and clear (best appreciated on Blu Ray). The sound effects are also excellent. The action sequences are fantastic with awesome photography. Wow, this was actually really exciting. A film that looks and sounds amazing, and an interesting story. I loved every minute!

Mark Wahlberg plays popular game hero Max Payne, a cop who sets out to find the man who killed his wife and child, while doing so he uncovers a potential conspiracy that could lead him to the killer.

While Max Payne boasts a great tone, atmosphere and great cinematography, the overall film wasn't really all that great, the acting was tough to judge, there were some good performances but the actors seem like they didn't have much to work with, the action scenes are minimal, and was just a ton of shooting and they weren't all that exciting, however if you are interested in this film, you can watch it, but I feel that there are better options.

Without comparing it to the game, I felt they could have done more to make it a bit more interesting and exciting, and possibly add more to Max Payne's back story and they could've been more inventive with the action scenes instead of making people just shoot at each other.

Otherwise, its a good concept and is well shot, but the execution needed a little more work.

Max Payne was a game that was born of Film Noir and John Woo. This movie? Voice overs = 1 or two. (There was hope in the opening but then nothing) Action scenes = minimal. (Not too bad other than being sparse) Acting = very good for what little the script offers. (The actors do not deserve the blame for this atrocity unless it is for choosing to do this script.) Scenery/Cinematography = Brilliant but wasted on scenes like 8 minutes picking up a folder with no conflict in the scene. (The scenery was impressively accurate to the game. I kept feeling like it was going to get better because of it. Then nothing would happen.)

I wanted this to be good. I kept lying to myself and saying it would get better any minute.

People who say I am disappointed because it isn't the video game need to understand I didn't want the video game I wanted an action film that captured the essence of the game.

We are left with no reason to care for Max Payne. If I was the writer I would have been ashamed to have my name attached.

Max Payne got the Indy treatment.

I really want my money back on this one. I felt insulted that they thought this script was a passable story.

This film is a really big missed opportunity. The styling and story line of the game could have been easily transferred t oa dark and violent film noir with a nice dose of conspiracy thrown in. Unfortunately all of this is wasted on a very tame and lackluster film that stick to a predictable formula with poor character development and sloppy dialogue.

Some of the visuals are nice but the lack of any true bullet time (which is a big mechanic of the games) is a real let down. As for the violence, yes there is a lot of shooting but this is a film that needed to be darker and more visceral. Had the action been more similar to films such as John Wick and the Raid or even the Punisher (TV series not film) and this film could of had potential. Unfortunately all of this was repeatedly squandered through.

The acting is fine but I felt that the poor script left them very little to work with. Hopefully in time this will get some form of reboot and correct these wrongs.

Poor Mark Wahlberg. Ever since he obtained a fully deserved Oscar nomination for The Departed, he has struggled to hit it as big again: Shooter was enjoyable but unmistakably shallow, We Own the Night received very mixed reactions, and The Happening was one of the most unjustly panned movies of 2008 (well, minus the plastic plant scene). None of those, however, is as bad as Max Payne, which just about tails The Truth About Charlie for the title of Wahlberg's career low.

But hey, few people expected Payne to be any good in the first place. For starters, it's based on a video game, and those never turn out well on film. Secondly, it's directed by John Moore, whose body of work is all but encouraging (he remade The Omen, for crying out loud). Plus, it comes off as a mix of fantasy, action and revenge thriller - in short, a mess.

For those not familiar with the game, the story centers on the titular cop (Wahlberg), a brilliant homicide detective who's been reassigned after the brutal murder of his wife and kid. When a Ukrainian girl (Olga Kurylenko) is found dead with his wallet in her pocket, he's immediately charged with the murder, and the only way to clear himself is to find a thug named Lupino (Amaury Nolasco), who might even have something to do with Mrs. Payne's death (go figure..).

With some minor adjustments, this could easily be the latest installment of Death Wish. If only things were that simple: the plot is twisted even more with a subplot concerning a mind-altering drug called Valkyr, which makes everything look like Hell on screen and destroys Norse mythology's credibility off screen. Then again, decent scripts are rare when it comes to this sort of flick, so Moore is supposed to redeem himself with visuals and action scenes: in the first case, he delivers more than enough; in the second, he disappoints, and big time - not counting the first ten minutes and the last twenty, there's a serious lack of pace and ass-kicking.

Last but not least, the acting. Wahlberg does pretty much the same he did in Shooter: gritty and watchable, but never exploits his huge potential. Mila Kunis, who plays the "Payne girl" (sorry, couldn't resist), is totally miscast, being too young and with the wrong background (That '70s Show), except for the fact that she is of Ukrainian descent like her on-screen sister Kurylenko. Beau Bridges, generally a fine presence, manages the unenviable task of becoming worse as the picture progresses, and Nolasco's villain is as lifeless as they come (and let's not even get started on Ludicrous' "acting").

Long story short: if this were a game, it would reach the "Game over" stage after twenty minutes. Compared to this, even Tomb Raider looks decent enough.