Review of Max Payne (2008) by Aodhan R — 03 Feb 2015

Usually something with Mark Wahlberg in it is fun and entertaining to watch, with the exception of the 2008's game-adapted movie 'Max Payne.' Wahlberg is in no way a bad actor, but a lot of his movies are worth more to approve of than Max Payne, which is a bit of a silly action-thriller with a 'police investigation' type plot that goes nowhere.

It starts off exciting: the audience are simply just thinking 'I can't wait to see Mark first appear' - everyone loves him - and the first sign of his appearance he's nearly drowning and buried and frozen - and then the movie (instead of skipping) kicks back a week prior to the horrific drowning, where the main plot kicks in. Wahlberg plays Payne: a police detective (once a family man now a loner) who is committed to finding and avenging the murder of his deceased wife and baby son. I was also satisfied this movie would turn out great when the movie featured a brief appearance of Olga Kurylenko (the hot Bond girl from Quantum of Solace) and rapper Ludacris, who appears early on in the movie.

Beau Bridge's acting isn't the best or toughest. He plays a major role called BB (funny enough) and the way Bridges gave his approach to his part wasn't the best, nor was the twist to his character which is revealed towards the movie's third act that was supposed to be good in anyway good. The characters aren't the best, really, at all, but it's not to say they're all thoroughly bad actors. Mila Kunis's take on the leading female role is my second most disinteresting character.

Screenwriter Beau Thorne really tries to create a screenplay that tries to evade going over certain boundaries or even being equal with them, which just completely mucks up the plot and the direction even more and complicating things further. It can't be as bad as a muck up as one Wahlberg's latest hits: Transformers: Age of Extinction.

Max Payne may lack a decent crime thriller story or fairly good action sequences (not that there isn't any action, but limited moments), but the whole dark tone and shadowy blackness of the movie reminded me of a 'Gotham spin-off setting' depicted on screen, in a good sense and I quite liked that.