Review of Max Payne (2008) by Chads. — 18 Oct 2008
The drug use in "Max Payne" rewrites the Huey Lewis and the News song "I Want a New Drug" like this: "I want a new drug/One that won't make me see valkyries..." But valkyries, according to Norse mythology, are not the winged caterwauling bitches(they're female deities) we see in "Max Payne"; they were referee-like creatures who arbitrated battles, and determined who fought most heroically.
Presenting the valkyrie as malevolent beings is an artistic license the filmmaker takes, inspired, perhaps, by Francis Ford Coppola's use of composer Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" in "Apocalypse Now".
With the possible exception of Chuck Jones' animated short "What's Up Doc?", the 1979 film would seem to be how most people are familiar with the concept of valkyries; people like the film's screewriters, who place the shieldmaidens in an apocalyptic setting.
"Max Payne" pulls a "Cujo"; the negative reimagining of the valkyrie is canny in this respect: Wagner, a confirmed anti-Semite, had his baroque music appropriated by the Nazi party; the Fuhrer himself was a big fan.
In "Max Payne", U.S. soldiers ingest a drug in liquid form that desensitizes them to their enemy. In other words, these men and women are drinking the kool-aid. Our enemies, the Iraqis, are like the original incarnation of the valkyrie, transformed by government propaganda, which proposes that the Islamic faith is evil, akin to Nazism.
When the valkyries attack, they do so because the winged creatures have been provoked.
This review of Max Payne (2008) was written by Chads. on 18 Oct 2008.
Max Payne has generally received mixed reviews.
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