Review: Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Ludacris, Chris O’Donnell)
Max Payne is the movie adaptation of the popular third person shooter video game of the same name (2001, Remedy Entertainment). The game was famous for being the first to use “bullet time” – when activated, a player could slow time around Max Payne, allowing his to target and shoot several antagonists before they had time to react. Wahlberg stars in the film as the title character, Kunis is Mona Sax, and Ludacris is Detective Jim Bravura.
Ok right off the top I cannot review this without some spoilers . . . . so if you do not want to know, DO NOT HIGHLIGHT THIS:
(if you don’t care, then of course highlight the invisotext to read)
Ok well the trailers are completely misleading. Every effect that you see ends up being during a hallucination, which was a bit of a rip off. This is a standard action flick that is actually light on action but heavy on imagery. It looks great, but when the winged creatures flying around end up not being there “for real”, it takes quite a bit away from the experience. This would have been scores better if they had gone there with the demons being “real”. There are a few scenes that completely do NOT work after the reveal that there are no demons (like the one in the trailer where the guy gets pulled from the window – what a cheat to show us that and then later say he jumped when he clearly did NOT).
Wahlberg is good, Kunis is cool (well, she loses her accent part of the way through the movie, but I blame the director for not fixing that), and Ludacris is mostly believable. Bridges probably does the best as far as the acting goes. The use of Norse mythology is cool (but when have been cooler if not for whats in the invisotext spoiler). I wanted to like this. The use of bullet time is minimal but effective, and the demon/fire effects are well done, but the invisotext tells you the problems with this one. Max Payne made a ton of money during its first week, but its style over substance approach left a lot to be desired.
Grade: C+ (the snow-turns-to-fire scene was worth the “+”)
Max Payne is the movie adaptation of the popular third person shooter video game of the same name (2001, Remedy Entertainment). The game was famous for being the first to use “bullet time” – when activated, a player could slow time around Max Payne, allowing his to target and shoot several antagonists before they had time to react. Wahlberg stars in the film as the title character, Kunis is Mona Sax, and Ludacris is Detective Jim Bravura.
Ok right off the top I cannot review this without some spoilers . . . . so if you do not want to know, DO NOT HIGHLIGHT THIS:
(if you don’t care, then of course highlight the invisotext to read)
Ok well the trailers are completely misleading. Every effect that you see ends up being during a hallucination, which was a bit of a rip off. This is a standard action flick that is actually light on action but heavy on imagery. It looks great, but when the winged creatures flying around end up not being there “for real”, it takes quite a bit away from the experience. This would have been scores better if they had gone there with the demons being “real”. There are a few scenes that completely do NOT work after the reveal that there are no demons (like the one in the trailer where the guy gets pulled from the window – what a cheat to show us that and then later say he jumped when he clearly did NOT).
Wahlberg is good, Kunis is cool (well, she loses her accent part of the way through the movie, but I blame the director for not fixing that), and Ludacris is mostly believable. Bridges probably does the best as far as the acting goes. The use of Norse mythology is cool (but when have been cooler if not for whats in the invisotext spoiler). I wanted to like this. The use of bullet time is minimal but effective, and the demon/fire effects are well done, but the invisotext tells you the problems with this one. Max Payne made a ton of money during its first week, but its style over substance approach left a lot to be desired.
Grade: C+ (the snow-turns-to-fire scene was worth the “+”)
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