Max Payne Does Home Video - a Review

The first Max Payne game, when I picked it up for the PC back in late summer 2001, was a singular experience. That thing kept me enthralled for almost a week - I basically recall going to work, eating, and playing Max Payne.

The story, the mood, the action - all were marvelously conceived and effortlessly executed. Then came Max Payne 2, which was supposed to be much the same, but the magic was gone. And now we have Max Payne, the movie, on home video. Here, as in the sequel, the mysterious sway the original title held over gamers and action fiends is almost entirely absent.

Let there be no misunderstanding, Max Payne isn't a bad motion picture. It's quite watchable and only has a few yawnsome stretches, but it's nowhere nearly as compelling as its source material.

As goes for most movies based on games, a combination of the inspiration being ill-suited to other formats and the filmmakers' ever-present fears that "normal", non-gamer audiences won't get it conspire to knock this release back a few notches. Once again the action has become subdued, central story tenets dropped, and characters erased.

This Max Payne has Mark Wahlberg render the game protagonist as a more hapless, almost bureaucratic persona, and although he does that adequately, this isn't the noir enigma the first iteration was. And while Max Payne started out fictional life as an almost psychotic rogue NYPD detective, Wahlberg puts forth someone laden with grief and despair - not a sadistic, Punisher-like desire to avenge himself against the criminal element.

Speaking of elements, the movie glosses over or outright ignores many components from the game's cool story, such as the vital mafia aspect and shadowy Inner Circle. Instead, we have a plot that follows a familiar arc. Cop wronged by nefarious interests, goes a bit off kilter, finds renewed passion for correcting said wrongs, then kicks some ass. Only some though, this isn't the most gung ho movie ever released, although there are several respectable action setpieces. Only a few, mind, and the game's super-addictive bullet time likewise gets a simple, after a fashion nod, that's it.

Conversely, the supernatural was merely a backdrop in the game version, but here it's taken to a slight extreme. This doesn't hurt, but nor does it help avert attention from the fact that the movie's version of New York isn't as detached and comic-bookish as the game's.

However, they did get the snow almost right (the game was set during a strangely long, seemingly endless blizzard), and many of the original characters actually end up more interesting than in the game - to wit Ludacris as Lt. Jim Bravura and Mila Kunis as assassin Mona Sax. We also get Amaury Nolasco portraying Jack Lupino, a character most gamers would say wasn't all that essential to proceedings in the original, but don't quote me on that. In the movie he's almost the chief antagonist, which doesn't sit right.

Either way, Max Payne won't bore you, it's OK as an action movie and the dark, snowy mood helps it as a cold season release. It's quite apparent they didn't really film in New York, but the CGI isn't too obvious or cheesy.

Director John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines) manages to supervise a good looking affair here, and while gamers won't get to relive the chaotic, often tragic but nonetheless memorable days of summer-fall 2001 through this film, it's still a relatively competent game-movie conversion, and appropriately enough has a neat end credit sequence.

Rating: * * *

Directed by John Moore

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Chris Bridges, Beau Bridges

2008, English, 100 minutes