"Max Payne" - spoiler movie review

Comic books have been the basis for many films, but video games have been a source as well, as is the case with "Max Payne". He's a police officer, stuck in a cramped, claustrophobic room with a desk, but he actually asked to be transferred to the Cold Case Department so that he could surreptitiously continue to look for the people who brutally murdered his wife and young child several years prior. Payne's efforts lead him to a club, where he meets a woman who ends up being torn to pieces after leaving Payne's apartment after he rejected her advances. Suspicion for her murder is placed on Payne, and the woman's sister is none too pleased with him either. But the two of them eventually join forces when it seems that the people responsible for killing Payne's family also killed the woman's sister. More investigation leads to a drug that was manufactured by the company Payne's wife worked for, and Payne discovers that the killer was much closer to home than he ever suspected.

I'm not familiar with the video game that this film is based on, and I actually didn't even know of the movie's origins until after I'd seen the trailer and been interested based on what I saw.

Overall, I liked the film, and I liked the different levels of story and the inter-weaving of Payne's change in character from before the murders and after. I liked seeing the mystery unravel until it's revealed that his wife was murdered by someone so close to Payne himself.

As you'd expect from seeing the trailers, the action sequences are spectacular, and there are also some pretty cool CGI segments when the people are hallucinating from the drug. I loved the speech by the tattoo artist about valkyries, and with the few segments they showed, it actually made me wish that the story did involve valkyries instead of them just being visions. I especially loved seeing the snow around Payne turn to shards of fire being rained down and the heavens opening into a fiery hell. However, speaking of snow, I was so over the lightly-blowing snow effect fairly quickly. The first couple times it was used, yeah, it gave the landscape a nice look. But except for one scene in the pouring rain, every other outdoor scene had this light snow flurry thing going on. Yeah, ok already, nice effect, MOVE ON.


I loved this scene from the film, but I was disappointed to discover that the valkyrie wasn't real.


The scene in the drug manufacturing warehouse reminded me a lot of "Star Wars" because the bad guys seemed to be just about as accurate as Stormtroopers. They're spraying machine guns and shooting the hell out of the batch of drugs (I figured they must have really wanted Payne to destroy so much of the precious drug that they were manufacturing) - the exploding blue vials were a nice effect - but they completely miss Payne. I did like the effect of Payne shooting the shotgun behind him as he was falling backwards to get the guy on the catwalk.

And in a rare moment for me, I actually knew immediately after the blue vials were put in Payne's pocket that they'd come into play later when he would need those drugs. I'm usually not great at catching that sort of thing.

I didn't know there was anything at the end of the credits in this film, but since I always sit through credits of a film, our group of four were literally the only ones left in the theatre when the credits ended and the last scene was shown. The last scene sets up an obvious sequel, and I liked this film enough to be interested in seeing another one.

Mark Wahlberg was good in this, but I'm not as enamoured of him as some. Sure, he's been ok in the few things I've seen him in (I think I liked him best in "The Italian Job", and he did well in this film, but I don't think it was a particularly spectacular performance.

However, I will say that I'm liking Mila Kunis more and more every time I see her. When I first saw her in this film, I thought she looked kind of familiar but couldn't place her. It wasn't until later in the movie that I realized who the actress was playing the sister. She looks very different than the last time I saw her, in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", but I really liked this look with the darker makeup. And not that she was a wilting flower in the other film, but she was definitely kick-ass in this film, and she had the big gun to prove it.


Mila Kunis in "Max Payne".


Mila Kunis in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall".


I'm looking forward to seeing her in more films. Hmmm, I wonder if they could find a vehicle where Mila Kunis and Kat Dennings are working together?





I also liked Beau Bridges in this film. It's been a while since I've seen him, and I thought he did a terrific job, and you totally don't see it coming that he's the one who killed Payne's wife, and he doesn't even seem particularly bothered by it.

I am becoming a big fan of the acting of Ludacris aka Chris Bridges. I first saw him in an episode of "Law and Order: SVU", and he was absolutely incredible and rivetting. I think Ice-T does a good job on that show, but Ludacris kept right up with him and then some. Ludacris does a good job in this film as well as a police detective. I might have to go through his filmography and see what older films of his I might want to watch.

Chris O'Donnell is ok in a smallish part, but he did have a great scene when Payne was trying to torture information out of him a la Jack Bauer.

Oh, and there's one scene where Payne first sees the blue vials in the room in the club, and there's a blonde on the bed who I think has just taken a vial and is hallucinating. I don't think she had a line, but I totally recognized her as the actress who plays Daphne on "Heroes".