Max Payne - Preview & US reaction
Preview by Jack Foley
MARK Wahlberg has shot straight to the top of the US box office with his latest movie, Max Payne, based on the popular video game of the same name.
The film took an estimated $18 million to take top spot over the October 17-20 weekend (2008), beating Fox Searchlight’s adaptation of the novel The Secret Life of Bees into third place (with $11.1 million) and Oliver Stone’s W. – an examination of Bush’s rise to power and subsequent presidency – into fourth (with $10.6 million).
Max Payne is a maverick cop – a mythic anti-hero – determined to track down those responsible for the brutal murders 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 is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world and face an unthinkable betrayal.
Oscar® nominee Wahlberg (The Departed) plays Payne as a man who has little regard for rules – and nothing to lose – as he investigates a series of mysterious murders that could be tied to the death of his wife and child.
Joining Wahlberg in Max Payne are Mila Kunis as Mona Sax, a beautiful Russian mobster and assassin; Olga Kurylenko (who stars in the upcoming James Bond film Quantum of Solace) as Natasha, Mona’s thrill-seeking younger sister; Chris “Ludacris” Bridges as Internal Affairs Detective Jim Bravura; and Beau Bridges as Max’s mentor, BB. John moore (of The Omen and Behind Enemy Lines fame) directs.
US reaction
Critics were lukewarm on Max Payne, with most lamenting it as another failed video game adaptation.
Time Magazine wrote: “The moviegoers are passive hostages on a long ride they’ve taken so many times before. So gameboys are advised to man their PlayStations this weekend; action-movie fans in search of red meat can wait for the inevitably more graphic DVD version.”
And Rolling Stone stated: “Max just drags on as it drags you down. If you stay and watch the endless end credits, there’s a short scene that hints a sequel is coming. That’s what I call real pain.”
The New York Times, meanwhile, wrote that “Max Payne is content to be an efficient vehicle for the delivery of a familiar range of sensations, some of which almost rise to the level of feelings”.
And Hollywood Reporter said: “The emotional underpinnings and psychological depths of great detective fiction get tossed aside for a wallow in stylistic excess.”
Variety, however, was a fan, noting that “Moore artfully blends vidgame and film-noir aesthetics while editor Dan Zimmerman’s measured rhythms yield a more coherent, less frenzied work than one might expect from the source material”.
And The San Francisco Examiner said: “Give Max Payne the modest credit it deserves. It’s a gloriously dumb, over-the-top slice of convoluted pulp fiction, and far more entertaining than I would have expected.”
But Entertainment Weekly rounds off this overview by stating: “The movie is a series of glum interrogation scenes that lead nowhere special, with a not-quite-sci-fi urban murkiness that makes it look like someone was trying to shoot Blade Runner in Cleveland.”
Max Payne will be released in UK cinemas on November 14, 2008.