Max Payne
Sorry, this review would have gone up here yesterday if it wasn’t for my early morning encounter with the magical shattering windscreen. Anyway…
Max Payne is something of a mixed bag. Upfront I’ll say that I didn’t hate it, although to offer a second opinion, a girl from work who was unfamiliar with the game thought it was terrible.
In terms of Max Payne’s positives, the film’s art direction, as well as set and costume design, are all outstanding. Fans of the game series will instantly recognise iconic locations from the first title, such as the Roscoe Station subway, the slum apartment block, the docklands container terminal, Max’s house, and the towering glass-and-chrome Aesir building. Fans of the game are also likely to receive a rush as they pick up on little touches like the Valkyrie graffiti tag that decorates many a wall. The film makers must be commended for their attention to detail in faithfully replicating the look of the game on the big screen.
Performances in Max Payne are also solid. After his dire performance in The Happening I was concerned how Mark Wahlberg would fare as brooding detective Max Payne here, but he does a good job. His Max Payne is grim and driven, but not so emotionally distant that the audience can’t feel pity for him.
Mila Kunis as Mona Sax does take some getting used to, but the more I think back to the first game, the more I remember the ridiculousness of character – a diminutive, slightly strange looking female mob enforcer. The original Sax was not the svelte supermodel of the second game. As a result I’m mostly prepared to accept Kunis’s scowling “I’m actually a respected badass” routine, however artificial it feels.
What hurts the Max Payne movie the most is its blatant PG-13 nature. It’s obvious that all sharp, dark edges have been filed down into safe blandness to gain a wider audience. There’s little to no bad language, Nina Sax remains discreetly covered even when trying to seduce Max, and although a major villain runs around with a machete, the film’s blood and guts quotient is remarkably low. Max Payne the game, with its dead babies and hallucinated pathways of blood, was definitely R-rated. You can’t substitute that unsettling imagery by simply throwing drug-induced demons at the cinema audience. Hopefully an unrated Director’s Cut of Max Payne will be released on DVD sometime in the near future.
The pacing of the Max Payne film is also quite odd. Around three-quarters of the film is slow, brooding investigation. The stylish action you’re overloaded with in the trailer is pretty much confined to the last 20 or so minutes of the film. As a result, although the film’s plot is considerably different from the game’s, anyone at all familiar with the game will always be one step ahead of the storyline’s twists and turns, making for a rather dull cinema experience.
I’m nitpicking here too, but at no point does Max ever have to pop a painkiller, and nobody utters a signature line like “It’s Payne” or “The flesh of fallen angels”.
Ultimately, the bottom line is that a Max Payne film should be far darker and grittier than this one turned out. Chances are you’ll receive a momentary thrill when you see iconic characters and scenes brought to life, but really these flashes of pleasure are just the film makers capitalising on fans' good feelings towards the original game. And occasional moments of gratification cannot carry an entire 100-minute film.
One final note: Stay in your seat until the credits have finished rolling for an epilogue that rounds off one of the plot’s major loose ends.
Max Payne is something of a mixed bag. Upfront I’ll say that I didn’t hate it, although to offer a second opinion, a girl from work who was unfamiliar with the game thought it was terrible.
In terms of Max Payne’s positives, the film’s art direction, as well as set and costume design, are all outstanding. Fans of the game series will instantly recognise iconic locations from the first title, such as the Roscoe Station subway, the slum apartment block, the docklands container terminal, Max’s house, and the towering glass-and-chrome Aesir building. Fans of the game are also likely to receive a rush as they pick up on little touches like the Valkyrie graffiti tag that decorates many a wall. The film makers must be commended for their attention to detail in faithfully replicating the look of the game on the big screen.
Performances in Max Payne are also solid. After his dire performance in The Happening I was concerned how Mark Wahlberg would fare as brooding detective Max Payne here, but he does a good job. His Max Payne is grim and driven, but not so emotionally distant that the audience can’t feel pity for him.
Mila Kunis as Mona Sax does take some getting used to, but the more I think back to the first game, the more I remember the ridiculousness of character – a diminutive, slightly strange looking female mob enforcer. The original Sax was not the svelte supermodel of the second game. As a result I’m mostly prepared to accept Kunis’s scowling “I’m actually a respected badass” routine, however artificial it feels.
What hurts the Max Payne movie the most is its blatant PG-13 nature. It’s obvious that all sharp, dark edges have been filed down into safe blandness to gain a wider audience. There’s little to no bad language, Nina Sax remains discreetly covered even when trying to seduce Max, and although a major villain runs around with a machete, the film’s blood and guts quotient is remarkably low. Max Payne the game, with its dead babies and hallucinated pathways of blood, was definitely R-rated. You can’t substitute that unsettling imagery by simply throwing drug-induced demons at the cinema audience. Hopefully an unrated Director’s Cut of Max Payne will be released on DVD sometime in the near future.
The pacing of the Max Payne film is also quite odd. Around three-quarters of the film is slow, brooding investigation. The stylish action you’re overloaded with in the trailer is pretty much confined to the last 20 or so minutes of the film. As a result, although the film’s plot is considerably different from the game’s, anyone at all familiar with the game will always be one step ahead of the storyline’s twists and turns, making for a rather dull cinema experience.
I’m nitpicking here too, but at no point does Max ever have to pop a painkiller, and nobody utters a signature line like “It’s Payne” or “The flesh of fallen angels”.
Ultimately, the bottom line is that a Max Payne film should be far darker and grittier than this one turned out. Chances are you’ll receive a momentary thrill when you see iconic characters and scenes brought to life, but really these flashes of pleasure are just the film makers capitalising on fans' good feelings towards the original game. And occasional moments of gratification cannot carry an entire 100-minute film.
One final note: Stay in your seat until the credits have finished rolling for an epilogue that rounds off one of the plot’s major loose ends.
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