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Ah, videogame movies. A category of films as universally maligned as the output of Uwe Boll (a similarity that is hardly surprising: most of Boll's films are based on videogame properties). Why nobody can make a great one can be discussed until the cows come home, and it is a question that will not be answered until somebody actually does. Max Payne, the latest entry in the beleaguered field, is certainly far from a great film, but it's not a car wreck. Recent videogame-to-film adaptations have at least shown a willingness to adhere more closely to their source material, and in Max Payne, director John Moore gets one important thing right: he nails the atmosphere. One of the defining characteristics of the 2001 game which has ultimately spawned this film was the look. It emerged just as 3D graphics were really starting to come into their own, making a decent stab at photorealism, and its film noir look set it apart from its contemporaries. The film replicates its wintry urban wasteland, a New York where the sun never shines and if it's not raining, it's snowing. Establishing this setting and mood so well at least gets Max Payne The Movie off on the right track.
The game was itself a rather derivative affair, drawing on countless detective stories and crime thrillers from Hollywood's past, combined with a liberal helping of Matrix-inspired Bullet Time gunfights. The story is a simple and rather hackneyed one: city detective Max Payne (see what they did there? Clever) seeks revenge for the murder of his wife and young baby. His search for the perpetrator takes him to all the places you wouldn't find in a tourism brochure, and sees him fighting both sides of the law and almost hooking up with the fresh-from-Bond Olga Kurylenko. The action quotient on offer here is actually less than you would expect given the Himalayan-sized pile of corpses that Max stacks up in the game, and the shootouts that are present are actually nothing to write home about. Fortunately, there are enough redeeming features elsewhere to make this a worthy investment of time if it appeals.
It cannot be said, though, that Mark Wahlberg delivers an outstanding performance, but the fact that he basically wears one expression for the entire time is actually quite an accurate representation of the game's (anti-)hero. Where the film shines most is in the visual department, and while the posters suggest a Sin City clone, this actually has a distinctive look of its own. The most original aspect of the film, which makes it a bit different from your usual renegade-cop-on-a-rampage film, involves the elements of Norse mythology that derive from the game's Swedish origins. Eventually the unrelenting murkiness does begin to feel somewhat repetitious, and an all-too-predictable late development threatens to derail the whole endeavour. It gets away with it, marginally, thanks to the well sustained atmosphere and sufficiently engrossing mystery at the heart of the tale.
The summary
A murky and shadow-drenched neo-noir, Max Payne is rather shallow and sometimes slow, but at least looks the part.
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