Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Max Payne: The Movie

For Chinese New Year, my brother got me to sit down and watch a movie with him. I'm not a big movie watcher, especially in the theaters. Unless it's something particularly relevant, I have a hard time spending a couple hours essentially just watching TV. But being something video game related and that I could talk about on the blog, I agreed.

When we went to go rent the movie, I asked him why he was interested in it. He explained that he was interested in Max Payne's battle against the demons. I thought, yeah, I guess that's true Max Payne had a lot of personal demons and if they had really developed that part of the plot, it could be really good. Then I looked at the back of the box, there were actual demons with like claws and wings flying around.

I was a little confused watching the movie. There was all sorts of drug use so I assumed it was causing people to hallucinate and see demons. But then all these people were going around dying being torn to pieces by the beasts and being pulled out of windows. So I never really figured out why there were demons in the movie. Despite them, I was enjoying the movie about 80% the way through. But then it got to a point where I had to call Travis and ask him about the accuracy of the Max Payne movie versus Max Payne the game. Around that point is when the movie went downhill and really never had a chance to pull itself back out.

I wasn't upset that the movie didn't follow the game. We all know that's what movie adaptations are known for and what fans always whine about. I've never played Max Payne so that's not the case for me. But when I called Travis, it was at a point in the movie where things just got totally ridiculous. It felt like they were just throwing things on the wall trying to see what stuck. I called Travis to see if maybe that's how the game went in order to understand the reasoning behind the madness. If the choices had been modeled after the game, I think I would have been more understanding.

In the end, actually there really was no end. No summation. No happy ending. No sad ending. Max Payne shoots someone for revenge. The guys dies. Payne falls to his knees. Then the police show up. And the credits roll. They had plenty to build on. A romance with Mila Kunis. The performance of Christopher Bridges (Look him up). The three years he searched for his wife's killer. They ended up going with Max Payne taking the drug himself and then becoming some possessed being shooting up everything in sight.

I really don't even know how to end this post so I'll take a cue from the movie.

Written By David Liao.

Also, why is Mark Wahlberg always making the same face? He just scrunches up his face and eyebrows and acts mad. He looked very one dimensional in this movie. I blame the movie cause I know he's been better.

8 comments:

Xalgar said...

Sounds horrible, I'm sorry you had to see that David

Skillface said...

I lol'd @ the actual demons vs. personal demons confusion, that's just ridiculous.

Danny Smith said...

this flick was so bad on so many levels. it was so unfaithful it wasn't even parody, it didn't even use the theme. the games have always been the very definition of noir in the videogame medium and this was a crappy shoot em up that lacked any nuance or subtlety.

ive been studying film at university for 3 years now, this is a checklist of everything were told not to do to make a movie.

-so bad in fact i actually viewed the happening again afterwards and enjoyed it more in comparison.

why marky-mark?, why?

Anonymous said...

Movies based off of video games (and video games based off of movies) are always going to be bad. It's like some cosmic balance, if it ever changes the universe might implode in on itself.

Anonymous said...

...i was going to watch that movie casue my dad rented it but didn't have time becasue of school....even tho i never played the game when you watch the trailer i was like wait were there demons in the game??? but yah

only good thing about the movie is becasue Olga the girl in the red dress ^__^ she is HOTTTT!! hahaha

Faux Tawn said...

Mark Wahlberg is one of those actors and actresses who can only make one face.

See: Renee Zelwegger (sp), Nicole Kidman.

Anwan said...

After the credits Max goes into a bar and meets up with Kunis' character. She shows him a newspaper article and it has that woman who runs that company on the cover, they stare at each other and then it goes black, so I'm assuming there will be a sequel and they are going to go after that lady.

-Punchdrunk

Quater said...

Dude you obviously haven't played the game if you're wondering about his face - the whole point of Max Payne's character is he always has the exact same screwed-up constipated expression. The idea that Mark Wahlberg might have actually picked up on that, or even just did it by accident, is freaking hilarious and now I *have* to see this movie.