It’s that age-old question revamped for the new millennium – which comes first the chicken or the egg — or when it comes to Max Payne, the video game or the movie? In this case, it’s the former. Quel surprise (!) I’m not a gamer, but couldn’t help thinking I was living in one during the long 86 minutes I sat in the smelly neighborhood theatre that hubby swore he would never return to. But that’s another story.
Yeah, the movie is interminable, but ambitious — lots of noise, lots of action, lots of film noir cinematography but there are plenty of movies that have done this a million times better, so what’s the point?
This is painful. Max Payneful.
Let’s face it, taking your cues from a video game can be good and bad. Good because there’s usually plenty of action, and good vs. evil elements, bad because the movie characters can be as robotic as their game counterparts. Seriously, does anyone remember Angelina Jolie’s ahem, distracting physicality in Tomb Raider? Her bra did more acting. It should have received credits as a supporting player.
Such is the case with Max Payne.
Mark Wahlberg shoots up the town to in Max Payne.
Let’s just say this isn’t Mark Wahlberg’s finest moment. When he is good he is very, very good — The Departed, Boogie Nights, I Heart Huckabees – when he is bad… Planet of the Apes and this movie…ugh. As the witty Dorothy Parker once quipped about Katharine Hepburn, “Her emotions run the gamut from A to B. “, well, that’s about all you can say about not only Marky but most everyone else in this movie. Except for Beau Bridges as B.B., who should be spanked for his blustery over-the-top plain stupid performance. I’m a big fan of the Bridges brothers – but he tanks here.
The plot: Max Payne is a maverick cop on a mission to solve a series of murders — which includes not only his ex-partner but his beloved wife and infant. Of course, at first we don’t know that all these murders are connected – but being the resourceful dude he is Max dots the i’s for us fairly quickly. He joins forces (sorta — because Max really does his own thing) with another vengeful type, assassin Mona Sax (Mila Kunis) whose sister Natasha is another victim of this evil wave of winged horror. Okay, the winged part is a spoiler – but as soon as your butt hits the seat you’ll get why it’s not much of one.
I recently saw a portion of an interview with the great action director Ridley Scott , and I’m completely paraphrasing him here but Scott’s main point was: When you have a good script, shooting a picture is relatively easy because you have a blueprint to follow. When you don’t have a good script — it’s just a terrible ordeal. Max Payne does not have a solid blueprint — just a series of visuals that string together into a big old murky mess. All the style in the world can’t overcome no substance.
Part of a video game’s appeal is the story the players themselves bring to it. The movie version of Max Payne predictably plods along without any real surprises. It will most surely attract fans, but most likely because there’s not a whole lot out there in movieland right now. And that’s just not worth the price of admission.
