Movie Review: Max Payne

Movie adaptations of video games are notoriously cringe-worthy. It seems that film companies, smelling a whiff of that "happy buck," hastily scramble a team of hack screenwriters and directors (who have likely never played the game) to run the game's plot, characters, and thematic structure through a meat grinder to crank out something that will appeal to the masses, but leave fans of the game fuming. "Hmm," these writers seem to say, stroking their beards devilishly, "Lets keep the costumes and some of the names the same, but essentially dump all the characters and ideas from the source material, make everybody secretly related to each other, and churn out a film that's generic and uninspired, yet laden with special effects." I would cite the godawful Resident Evil films as being one of the worst abusers of this formula, and the Silent Hill movie as being probably the most faithful to the game. I would rank Max Payne somewhere in the middle. It isn't utter garbage, but it's been watered down, and is nowhere near the greatness that was the game.

The Max Payne game was a third-person shooter that set itself apart by using Matrix-style slow-motion "bullet time" effects during shootouts. The game's plot seems like a fairly blatant rip off of The Punisher at first. Detective Payne comes home one evening, only to find a home invasion in progress in which his wife and baby are killed by a group of junkies jacked up on a new drug called "Valkyr." Shattered, Payne transfers to the DEA, where he goes undercover to infiltrate New York's Mafia underworld. When his cover is blown and he finds himself framed for the murder of a fellow agent, he has nothing to lose, and goes on an all-out mob killing spree, while following leads to those responsible for the deaths of his wife and child. The game's plot is delightfully gritty and noir-ish, told through a series of graphic novel cutscenes, which are brilliantly narrated with witty dialog and metaphorical language. Max's sense of humor and characterization as a psychotic, smirking wiseass with spiky hair and a leather jacket kind of made the game.

Mark Wahlberg's portrayal of this character gets the haunted obsession with vengeance and the leather jacket right, but that's about it. Completely gone is the edgy sense of humor and witty banter that made Max so... well, cool in the games. Wahlberg's Payne has the same backstory. But in the film he transfers to a cold-case desk job in the police station's basement, while secretly following up on leads to his family's killers. Wahlberg underplays the role as a typical, hard-boiled, traumatized cop gone sour on life, and I found this disappointing. And, come on, they could have at least spiked his hair up with some gel.

Also gone is the whole Mafia storyline; the Punchinello crime family is essentially replaced by one bad guy, Jack Lupino. In the game, he was a creepy, Valkyr-using underling in Punchinello's organization. In the film, he's a buff ex-army man who demonstrates .the application of Valkyr as an experimental vaccine for soldiers, created by the Aesir Corporation. While this may be more efficient for storytelling purposes, the Mafia added a lot of flavor to the game, and led to some of its most memorable scenes, like slogging through a dive hotel hideout full of "cheap mobster punks, and tired-eyed prostitutes," and seeing a tied-up Max beaten nearly to death by Frankie "Da Baseball Bat" Niagara.

Max Payne was an over-the-top action game, and the film is largely an action movie. Yet there was nothing really exciting about the action. "Bullet time" is used very sparsely throughout the film. Scenes that should have featured the effect don't. And the scenes that do are pretty lame. One scene features an agonizingly slow shot of Max falling backwards, while a guy with a rifle somehow misses him. This was one of the many action scenes which literally had me laughing out loud, and I wasn't the only one in the theater. This is significant; I don't think the filmmakers were trying to be funny.

The movie also had its share of things that didn't make a lot of sense, if not outright plot holes. Who attacked Max Payne in his apartment, that survived six shots? If the flying things aren't real, then who killed a certain character? If Valkyr gives 99% of people hallucinations, and 1% enhanced strength, then why do certain characters get both? How is Max able to magically recover from being shot? Why on earth would a certain influential character pull off a hit in person? There are more, but I won't belabor the point.

One interesting thing that the film fleshed out was the hallucinogenic effects of Valkyr. In the games, you find junkies spazzing out in bathrooms and see Lupino, who seems to think he's a wolf. The movie attempts to show the viewer what people on Valkyr see, namely fiery snow, and shadowy CGI creatures that look sort of like the legendary Mothman. While these effects are kind of cool, and allow the viewer into the characters' heads, they also serve to undermine the film's gritty realism. The trailer almost makes Max Payne look like a monster movie.

On its own merits, Max Payne isn't a terrible film. Nowhere near as bad as, say, Batman and Robin. It's a fairly entertaining action/revenge story, surprisingly dark for it's PG-13 rating. The acting is more-or-less adequate, though not Oscar-worthy. The dialog is often pretty bad. The effects are good, but not spectacular. It is, as someone in the IMDB forums put it, "a decent popcorn flick." But it doesn't hold a candle to the storytelling and attitude of the game. I can sort of understand why screenwriters changed so much when writing films like Super Mario Bros. or Street Fighter, and why they turned out so mediocre: there really wasn't that much to work with in those games. But now, there's no excuse, since video games frequently overtake movies as a viable storytelling medium. If this film leaves you kind of disappointed, as it did me, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of the old computer game -- it'll give you the real Max Payne experience.