This past weekend, video gamers finally got to see the highly anticipated movie version of Max Payne. Now if you’ve ever played the game, you know it’s filled with exciting slow motion shoot outs throughout the game. The story was pretty good also, and Max Payne was a take no prisoners kind of cop. Well once again the people in Hollywood messed it up big time. The story of Max Payne is a simple one. His wife and child are killed and he seeks to find those responsible for their greasily deaths. Well the movie did stay to the main plot, but came up with their own rendition as to why and by who these murders were done.
Since the death of his family Max (Mark Walberg) becomes obsessed with finding the killers responsible. Losing his partner in the process, and becoming a loner at the precinct are the prices he has paid in his search. In the game there are a lot of dream segments where Max is tormented by the scene of his family’s murder. Also in the game Max takes a lot of pain killers to get through the day, it also helps restore his heath to go on and continue battling the criminals. Ok, so that’s the game. Now in the movie it’s completely different. In the movie they have his family killed by some kind of super soldier, who drinks these energy enhancing serums that makes him have almost super like abilities. They never really show you any of this, but when he attacks you it’s fast and furious. Then there are these scenes of demon Valkeryes, which make no sense at all. What’s that all about? The movie drags, and there are not a lot of shootout scenes.
The first hour of the movie is really boring, and Walberg isn’t any help either. I think true Max Payne fans are not going to like this. There are little head nods in tribute to the game, like Mona Sax played by Mila Kunas, helping Max out, and some name dropping of streets and a club that’s in the game but that’s it. I was highly disappointed in this finale version that they put out. They actually had Max drink the super serum to give him extra energy to do the finale battle, which I said before were pain pills in the game. They had like one slow motion shooting scene, that I remember, and it was pretty boring. All and all, this was not a good rendition of a game turned into a movie. I have to give this movie 1 bullet out of 4. I did make me want to go back and play the game, because I would get so much more satisfaction from it then I did from this movie. The movie ran 1 hour and 39mins. It was rated PG-13 for violence including intense shooting sequences, drug content, some sexuality and brief strong language. It was directed by John Moore. It was written by Beau Thorne. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox and was produced by Firm Films, Abandon Pictures, Depth Entertainment, Dune Entertainment.
Remember there are always two sides of a story, make your side the best one told. Ezo
Next Week: Saw V
