Trailer Tuesday: May Payne

-


Last week the first trailer for Max Payne, based on the hit video game, appeared online.

I've blogged a bit on the film adaptation before, largely because the first Max Payne game is easily ranked among my top 10 favourite games of all time. "The flesh of fallen angels" ... whoo-whee.

Honestly I'll always be a bit conflicted about this movie, largely because it seems to be making an unnecessary circle - the main purpose of the Max Payne games was to put players in their own noir-ish John Woo action movie, complete with Matrix bullet time. So with this new film we're making the transition from movie to game back to movie.


This said, there was enough hinted at in the trailer to pique my interest. Enough in fact to make me overlook (well, just) the various barriers to my enjoyment I can see popping up:

A) The film is going to be PG-13 (ho hum, so much for mature content and/or intensity).
B) I honestly don't know if I can take Mark Wahlberg seriously after The Happening.
C) The overall project looks pretty, well, vanilla.

What is working for me though is the film's visual resemblance to the game, with its monochromatic snowy urban setting. All the actors look their parts (especially Mila Kunis as Mona Sax) and I certainly received a thrill from seeing the Ragnarok nightclub, with its garish neon sign, once again.

As for those angel-like creatures in the trailer, I can only guess that they're some kind of visual treatment of the effect Valkyrie, the drug that was so central to the first game's storyline, has on people. Presumably Max will be tackling more than one opponent high on the deadly narcotic.

Well, as a Max Payne fan, I certainly hope this is all true. Max Payne is not Constantine. There is no place for demons. The following plot synopsis just scares me a little in terms of how Valkyrie-free it is:

Based on the legendary, hard-hitting interactive video game, "Max Payne" tells the story of a maverick cop determined to track down those responsible for the brutal murder of his family and partner. Hell-bent on revenge, his obsessive investigation takes him on a nightmare journey into a dark underworld. As the mystery deepens, Max (Wahlberg) is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world and face an unthinkable betrayal.

I'm holding thumbs it all works out...


Max Payne opens in the US on 17 October.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the rebooted Lara Croft gay? Evidence for and against...

-
Image
As some of you know, I’ve been fangirling hard over the new Tomb Raider , the first entry in the video game series since 2008, and ostensibly a reboot for the entire franchise . Taking the form of an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 depicts the events that transformed a beautiful, if bookish, archaeology graduate into a pistol-packing adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude. We meet Lara Croft as a pretty, fairly ordinary 21 year old, brooding over her work notes, listening to her mp3 player and very much confined to the shadow of her male mentors. By the end of the game, however, she’s taken charge – she’s had to! – and, battered, bruised and bloody, she’s both a survivor and hero, right down to rescuing the princess and carrying her away in her arms. Yeah, this is probably the best point to mention that there will be some Tomb Raider 2013 spoilers in this post, so read ahead with caution. Anyway, I loved the game. Technically it’s near faultless, it looks beautiful, the ov
Read more

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Queer Icon (Part 4)

-
Image
Part 4: The mystery of Lara Croft’s sexuality “Now what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention from ya?” – Larson Conway (Tomb Raider, 1996) Despite being an icon for many queer pop culture consumers, Lara Croft’s own sexual orientation remains ambiguous. Outside of the Top Cow comics and live-action films – where Lara is blatantly heterosexual, with a fondness for slightly scruffy bad boys (who keep betraying and hurting her) – the character comes across as primarily asexual. Kurtis Trent is the only male figure who even comes close to being a love interest in the game series. Lara's apparent sexual disinterest is despite the adventurer appearing very sexually attractive herself; a figure of desire with bee-stung lips, voluptuous breasts, toned stomach and impossibly long, athlete’s legs. Yet Lara is never dominated by sexual yearnings or romantic affections. She is very much in control of herself at all times. It’s worth noting, however, that over time th
Read more

Ladies I Love: Part 2 - Rhona Mitra

-
Image
Following on from the first post in this series , you may realise that I have a very definite type. Anyway, today we profile model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra . This 36 year old Briton is of English, Irish and Indian descent. You'll have seen her pop up on the big and small screen multiple over the past decade and a half, although Mitra's claim to fame is that she was the second ever model (some say first if you rule out "unofficial"  Nathalie Cook ) to play iconic video game character Lara Croft . From 1997-1998, Mitra could be found in PR material, as well as at trade shows, events and conventions as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Tomb Raider 's kick-ass archeologist lead. There have been many official Lara Croft models over the years , but as far as I'm concerned Mitra remains the best. In my mind, of all of them, she most closely resembles the video game character in terms of facial features. Plus she comes from money and had a rebellious boarding
Read more