Max Payne tells the story of a former New York City homicide detective whose wife and baby daughter were killed by a gang of drug addicts. He now works a desk job in the cold case department, hoping to uncover a lead that might lead him to catch his family's killers. Without the knowledge of his superiors, he goes out every night tracking leads and interrogating suspects. His investigation leads him to an underground drug circle that is using a new drug called Valkyr that gives its users frightening hallucinations, sometimes driving them to suicide. He discovers the drug may have something to do with his family's death and he begins tracing it to the source, uncovering a conspiracy in a corporation his wife used to work for.
If you played the Max Payne video game and thought the story and action sequences were amazing, and you now want to see this movie in hopes of getting a similar story, you're going to be disappointed, that's a fact. The way I was able to enjoy this film was by not comparing it to the game, and just viewing it as a fun cop movie staring Mark Whalberg. I know that can be hard because there's certain things from the game you want to see translated, and when they're missing you get a little annoyed. I just reminded myself, "This isn't the game. This is a movie." I felt there was enough of the game in this film to keep me from being turned off. The tone of the game was well portrayed in the tone of the film. The darkness, both figuratively and literally, the constant blizzard, a lot of the characters. The settings in the film were almost dead on, which was impressive. A few bullet time sequences were even put in, one being the very cool scene shown in the trailer where Max Payne fires a shotgun while diving backwards. I was also glad that the trailer mislead us into thinking the Valkyries in the film were real and then surprised us by revealing them to be hallucination.
I mostly enjoyed this film as a fun action film that I could enjoy on a Friday night. The performances in the film are good, and so are the visuals. The dialogue and the story aren't as good as they could have been, and that was slightly disappointing, so that keeps this from being a great film noir cop movie. However, in an age where video game movies can't even get the basics right, and are basically God awful, this can claim to be one of the better video game adaptations. This film is flawed, but if you don't try to compare it to the game it can be an enjoyable watch.
7/10
If you played the Max Payne video game and thought the story and action sequences were amazing, and you now want to see this movie in hopes of getting a similar story, you're going to be disappointed, that's a fact. The way I was able to enjoy this film was by not comparing it to the game, and just viewing it as a fun cop movie staring Mark Whalberg. I know that can be hard because there's certain things from the game you want to see translated, and when they're missing you get a little annoyed. I just reminded myself, "This isn't the game. This is a movie." I felt there was enough of the game in this film to keep me from being turned off. The tone of the game was well portrayed in the tone of the film. The darkness, both figuratively and literally, the constant blizzard, a lot of the characters. The settings in the film were almost dead on, which was impressive. A few bullet time sequences were even put in, one being the very cool scene shown in the trailer where Max Payne fires a shotgun while diving backwards. I was also glad that the trailer mislead us into thinking the Valkyries in the film were real and then surprised us by revealing them to be hallucination.
I mostly enjoyed this film as a fun action film that I could enjoy on a Friday night. The performances in the film are good, and so are the visuals. The dialogue and the story aren't as good as they could have been, and that was slightly disappointing, so that keeps this from being a great film noir cop movie. However, in an age where video game movies can't even get the basics right, and are basically God awful, this can claim to be one of the better video game adaptations. This film is flawed, but if you don't try to compare it to the game it can be an enjoyable watch.
7/10