| | Max Payne
I must be the only person in the country who thoroughly enjoyed Max Payne. It only got an "18% Fresh" rating on rottentomatos.com and last time I saw it listed on Netflix, its community rating was barely two stars. But, what can I say? I liked it.
Sure it was formulaic. Sure Chris O'Donnell had a speaking role. Sure Mila Kunis was awful. I mean, really awful (her performance as "Mona" was so bad, the only one worse that comes readily to mind is Mark Whalberg's in his other 2008 dud, The Happening). In the "Max Payne" video game, Mona is smart and sexy assassin, but here, Kunis couldn't be more wooden if she were reading her lines off a cue card. Olga Kurylenko - who plays Mona's sister but is unfortunately killed off in the first act - played a much better seductress/spy in Hitman. Kunis could have taken some notes from that, but decided to phone it in instead.
Whalberg's not going to win many fans out of this either, but I think the director, John Moore, did right by everyone in not asking him to do too much. Don't get me wrong, it's not that Marky-Mark can't act, it's that he doesn't have much range. He's a poor man's Keanu Reeves. Remember how the typically awful Reeves was perfect in the Matrix movies? His sparse talents were exactly matched with what the movie required. Likewise, Whalberg was perfectly cast in The Departed and Boogie Nights mostly because he didn't have to push himself too far.
And that's ok.
He's good as "Max Payne," because he just so happens to be good at everything the character requires. Payne is a stone faced, killer; beaten down, despised, and treated like a ghost. His family hates him, his only "friend" hates him, and instead of being allowed a real policeman's beat he's been banished to a basement deskjob. Sound like anyone Whalberg knows? After The Happening he's lucky not to be banished to Bollywood.
Max Payne is also one of the better video game-to-movie adaptations I've seen and believe me, I've unfortunately seen a bunch. John Moore deftly combines the stylized imagery of the games with his own ideas to nicely fit the already established mold. He gives his actors all they can handle, controls the pace well, and makes excellent use of a modest budget. Other than Kunis really letting him down, it was a solid job.
I've played through both Max Payne game's and enjoyed them both immensely. They weren't the best shooters I've played, but I played them the whole way through because they were fun and I wanted to see how the story played out. I have roughly the same feeling about this movie. It wasn't the best action movie I've seen, but it was fun and enjoyed it the whole way through. |
| | Posted 2/13/2009 4:39 PM - 1 View - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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