max payne
 | Stylishly dumb. But dumb.
The rating was changed from R (rightfully) to PG-13 when the production's marketing dept. realized that the only likely audience for this is teenagers. It's actually well into the R range for ugly violence. max payne 3 This is a real shame for Mark Wahlberg who is totally wasted in a highly intelligence-challenging film of shooting effects and a monotonous atmosphere. Also, Wahlberg should never be given humorless roles. He's reasonably effective as an action hero but he's too basically somber to carry a whole film without a pace breaking chuckle here and there. The monochromatic hues of the settings succeed only in keeping you in a dulled-out grip of perpetual night. In fact, that's about it -- a brazen movie of style over substance. Based on the high octane rough 'n ready interactive video game. Max Payne is a maverick cop on a revenge trip in search of the killers of his family and partner. He is a man obsessed, no force on earth being enough to stop him. But his quest will be nightmarish, taking him deep, deep into a dark, filthy and menacing underworld. Indeed, his enemies may not even be of this world and the betrayals will be catastrophic. The story has it that there are these "rooms" to be entered whose sole purpose appears to be to allow Payne to kill and then reload to kill again. The background would have us understand that there was a military experiment gone awry, one having to do with Valkyrie, a bright blue liquid drug which gives the user the feeling that he's invincible. He also gets to possess the mighty fighting spirit of the classic Norse mythological gods which now appear in all their glory. (Ya gotta be kidding!) As his partner in all this, he's got Russian mobster Mila Kunis. Coherence and suspense are totally elbowed aside in favor of the "cool" special effects and stylized mood, which can get sleep-inducing after awhile. Everything rides to peak, obviously, when Max Payne takes this drug so to start his colossal revenge quest. If this dude Payne is supposed to be appealing, well . . . (quality rating: 4) Director: John Moore Screenplay: Beau Thorne Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Chris O'Donnell, Beau Bridges, Mila Kunis, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges Time: 1 hr., 39 min. Rating: PG-13 (violence with considerable shooting, drug content, some sexuality and brief vulgarity) Marty Meltz max payne |
