Max Payne
October. 17,2008 PG-13A DEA agent whose family was slain as part of a conspiracy, and an assassin out to avenge her sister's death, join forces to solve a series of murders in New York City.
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That was an excellent one.
Fantastic!
It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.
A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Max Payne is inspired from a game with a same name, which tells us about the journey of a rogue police officer who are looking for a revenge over the death of his family. Directed by John Moore and starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis.The story begins with Max (played by Mark Wahlberg), a maverick cop, looking for revenge for the death of his family and partner. Later, he teamed up with beautiful and deadly Russian mobster, Mona Sax (played by Mila Kunis) to start his journey into the underworld to hunt Jack Lupino (played by Amaury Nolasco) down.First of all, for somebody who plays the game and quite fond of it, Max Payne fails miserably in capturing every parts that make the game interesting. The concept of a single man against the corruption of the system is never shown in the film. Rather than a journey of a simple hard-boiled detective, it simply devolved into mindless action flicks. They even misinterpreted the nightmares that Max had becoming some stupid supernatural elements with winged demons.The performance are sub-par, but you actually understand with it as probably the cast themselves has no idea what they should do during the take. We couldn't blame them at all. The actions are completely dull, and simply just try to emulate the bullet time effect with no success.It also looks as if a neo-noir film, with all edgy gritty more dark tone, but after you watch the half of the movie, you realized the story has no noir elements in it. They simply put the darken all the shots and call it a noir film.So overall, this movie is a disgrace and insult for everyone who take a look at this movie because they loved the game at the first place. But probably for somebody who never heard about Max Payne before, the movie could be your stupid action flick to watch.
I finished watching Max Payne last night after having to start and stop it a couple of times due to other things being much more important than watching it. Needless to say, I think I understand why Mark Wahlberg's face looked like it did throughout the movie...he was in pain too.Of course, this movie has been out for 9 years now...so why watch it now...I think mostly it was because I had it on my long list, and finally had a few minutes here and there to waste. I'm a gamer, and Max Payne (as well as it's shorter sequel Max Payne 2) stand out for me as milestones in my gaming history. The presentation and development of Max's character and backstory were top-notch and the ending was gratifying, not to mention all of the action in between. Based on Hollywood's game adaption history, I wasn't expecting much at all from this, although Wahlberg is one of my favorite go-to actors when I just want to see good action. Wahlberg tries really hard to bring Max's grit, pain, and determination to the screen, but he just never quite captures it. Most of the movie he tries pulling a Stallone in First Blood, rarely speaking, and when he does, the dialogue is terse and unemotional. Mila Kunis tries really hard to come off as a sexy but streetwise woman with a rough edge but all I kept waiting for was for her to either start talking about Jim Beam or cracking a joke. Trying to not compare her to the Mona in the game was more difficult than Wahlberg as Max.Beau Bridges...well, I'm not even going there. I think the only reason he still gets acting jobs is because of who his dad was. Ludicrous's portrayal as Lt Bravura was laughable to say the least...and Chris O'Donnell's Jason Colvin...he must have needed mortgage money at the time (it was before NCIS:LA...).The effects are so-so, and the "homage" to bullet-time was pretty ludicrous...you'll see what I mean when it happens. I just had to roll my eyes.I had to force myself to watch this because I'm not going to let a movie beat me. I mean, if I can sit through Leonard Part 6, I can handle anything right?
Max Payne is my second favourite Video game adaption after "Prince of Persia the Sand of Time".The movie is a clear and effective homage to the Noir-Thrillers of the 30's-50's in every aspect and that's what makes the movie great for me. This film doesn't rely on action sequences rather than telling a intriguing Thriller-story with a few very well handled action sequences, which are all unique and different.This is my favourite performance by Mark Wahlberg and that's saying something, because a year prior he showed us his worst performance in the weird "The Happening". He shows great subtle emotions and you feel for him the whole way through because you understand him. All the other actors also do a fairly well job, even Mila Kunis who is believable in one of her first serious roles.One of the reasons i hold this movie in such high regards is also the technical aspect of it. The look is beautiful and the camera-work and editing is great. It succeeds in capturing the style and tone of a real Noir-Thrillers, but with a modern take. Dark contrasts and long shadows, also the use of color in this movie is (while slightly on-the-nose) really well handled. Also the visual effects are really well done, most of all when people take the Valkyr-drug it's sheer amazing at times.The score by Marco Beltrami is some of his best work, and i'm a real fan of this composer for a long time.The story is slightly changed from the video game to make it work on it's own and so that it's surprising even for fans, and i appreciate it (being a fan of the games myself).I'm also happy they used Max monologues just at the start and the finish of the movie, because even in the game it's sometimes a bit to over-depressive and metaphorical at times.All in all i enjoy the movie very much, it even introduced me to the games, and even after playing both i haven't changed my mind at all... (For the record: I talk only about the Director's Cut, the other version really is some bull**** ;) )
Watching Max Payne I did not realize it was based on a video game character until reading about it here. Then certain things began to make sense and I put myself in the place of the protagonist/hero that Mark Wahlberg plays. A lot of it made sense even to me who is of an age where one did not play video games in their formative years.Wahlberg's Max Payne is a detective down in cold case now. He requested a transfer there, not a plumb assignment but one that leaves you with a lot of time on your hands. Time enough to study cases and develop patterns and similarities if one is looking for some special killers. In this case it was Wahlberg's wife and daughter. The late wife wife worked for a pharmaceutical company and it was over her job that she was killed. They've developed a drug for the military which given to soldiers just eliminates fear from the equation. You can fight off just about anything except a directly fatal wound. It's also highly addictive and you'll do just about anything to get it. If you don't get it some dark fantasies come your way.I have to give credit to Mark Wahlberg here. This film maybe based on a video game fantasy but at no time does Wahlberg become a cartoon like caricature. He also gets some good support from Donal Logue as his former partner, Beau Bridges as the former head of security at the victim's job and one deadly female assassin in Mila Kunis. That woman is in a role far from the emptyheaded cheerleader she played in That Seventies Show. She's originally hunting Wahlberg thinking he might have been part of the killing of her sister who's gotten into that drug. But they join forces against the bad guys.Remember this film is a fantasy and for a mass audience and it's hardly Oscar material. Still I have to give credit to Wahlberg and the cast for putting some dimensions into cartoon like characters.