Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

MusicChat 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.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Prismark10 Max Payne is a dull, derivative cheap looking adaptation of a video game.Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) is a NYPD detective investigating the death of his wife and baby.The film has a neo noir setting but Wahlberg is a blank, he just turned up for the pay cheque.It has almost a monochrome type washed out scenes, a bit like Sin City.The script is inane as Payne's investigation leads him to super soldiers addicted to an experimental drug and crooked cops. As this is a video game adaptation you have long drawn out John Woo inspired shooting sequences.

albrechtcm Maybe I've just seen too many movies. While Max Payne looked good from every angle, the writers are standing by throughout holding up a banner announcing the next event. Whenever a beautiful girl walks down a dirty dark alley at night... The moment you lay your eyes on Bad Guy #1 (I won't reveal his name), you know it and at the same time, realize what really happened to Max Payne's family and why. You know when a guy wants to come to Max's apartment with some information that he'll be dead before he can impart it. And you know Max will be blamed for just about everything that happens. There will be no surprises. Now it's just a matter of toughing it out to the end. Even the scene near the end when Max is lying on the street freezing to death. My wife told me several minutes before what was going to happen and how, and of course it did. Someone once said a good story should end with a logical, inevitable surprise.That is to say, you're really surprised, yet when you think about it, it was inevitable and you should have seen it coming. Sometimes to be blindsided by that kind of surprise would be nice.

bkoganbing 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.

kungfupou I am a hardcore fan of the original game. It was a Neo-Noir Thriller meets John Woo type of game. However, when I went to see this film I lowered my expectations as many video game to movie adaptations are horrendous. What I saw was a generically action film, with none of the heart and meaning of the games. The casting choice itself was "acceptable" as Marky Mark kinda tried to act the role, given the script sucks, which was admirable. From changing important characters to cliché filled scenes, there is really not much to praise, except for a few visual scenes and some Slow motion action scenes. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even the main villain, a baffling choice to make it BB(Backstabbing Bastard) instead of Nicole Horne, who would've given the film an interesting and unsuspecting villain was demoted to a second tier character. Mila Kunis as Mona does not seem right, as her lines feel weak and forced, with almost no emotion behind it.(Same goes for other actors as well). All in all it is a very forgetful film, which is a shame, because they had so much potential to turn an amazing game into an equally amazing movie. For hardcore fans or regular fans of the games, stay away from it as you would feel that important characters or settings are completely disregarded. For casual moviegoers if you are into a bland generic action movie, with a few good scenes than this is highly recommended, otherwise stay away from it.