‘Max Payne’ Doesn’t Stick to its’ Guns
-----‘Max Payne’ is a visually promising film based off of the Max Payne franchise of video games. However, despite promises of gun fights galore and a shoot first ask questions later script in the trailer, it doesn’t deliver. When going to see a movie based on a video game most viewers will agree that they are more interested in seeing action and not counting on a script to do the work. Even worse yet, is Max Payne where the action scenes are few and far between and the script doesn’t carry the lengthy portions of dialogue. ‘Hitman’ is an example of a video game adaptation focusing on action and letting the script be more of a means to an end. Let the viewer see what they paid for. Max Payne did not seek to simply entertain and perhaps set its sights too high.
-----One of the few things Max Payne can boast is excellent cinematography that ends up entertaining you more than the plot. Dark tones and an ever-snowing landscape give this film a stylized look but the lack of action puts this to waste and keeps the film from ever really taking off. The viewer will find themselves tired, confused, and ultimately bored after about the first 40 min. of patiently waiting for an action scene. Undeveloped characters lead the way in this story about Max Payne trying to solve the murder of his wife and child as he sifts through cold case files. Wahlberg is adequate in his portrayal of Payne but rarely do you feel any compassion for him or any of the other major players throughout the film despite a cast with a fare amount of familiar faces like Mila Kunis, Chris O Donnell, Beau Bridges, Donal Logue, and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges. These familiar faces should make you more partial to the characters but the scripts’ misplacement of screen time never gives the actors anything to work with. A good example is a brooding hulk of a man who barely wears a t-shirt and seems to be watching over every major event in the film only to be killed in a dull and short-lived fight scene. They overdevelop and under develop to the point where you have little stock in any of the characters while consistently trying to explain a plot that quickly loses your interest and ultimately amounts to an anti-climatic finish.
-----The film has its moments though, including a few shameless slow-mo moments where the video game shines through and the occasional line than arouses something like emotion in the viewer, but most of this can be seen in the trailer. Overall you could save some money and some time by just watching the trailer. This film looked promising but is really just a dull mesh of superior ‘adaptation’ films ‘Sin City’ and ‘Constantine’. Thus another week passes with a promising film amounting to nothing. Skip this one in theaters, but if you love Wahlberg, enjoy neo noir cinematography, or feel inclined to see it because you played the games, then I advise you to save your money and just rent it.
