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Max Payne - The Movie That Ate the Plot
1ddqd
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Max Payne is an awesome videogame that was released in 2001. I had to upgrade my GeForce Ti300 just to play this beast. I loved the game. It was gritty, the ultra-slow-motion effect was addictive (and at once, repetitive), but by far, the game was a fantastic purchase.
Fast forward 7 years. Mark Whalberg plays Max Payne, who is revenging his family, who were killed by bad dudes.
The movie is getting some pretty piss-poor reviews, which is dis-heartening, considering how awesome the game was. Are videogame movies following a formula, or are they simply doomed to fail? Isn't anyone else upset that our poor, defenseless child- and teen-hood games are being victimized?!
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 15%
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What I want to know about the Max Payne movie is if those winged things we see in the trailer are real or imaginary. Spoiler if necessary.
edit for spoiler, even though it was in the game
See, the plot-action balance can be worked out, but instead of 90-10, it should have been like 30-70. There was a TON of action in the game (durf), but I suppose the director didn't have either a) the balls to film it all, or b) the balls to take the criticism it would have received.
I guess the trick to watching these movies is to have your expectation low going in, then you can actually enjoy whats there instead of being disappointed by whats not.
That being said, I heard Blizzard teamed up with Legendary Pictures (they made The Dark Knight) to make a warcraft movie. They said it will be an War/Battle movie and from the perspective of the Humans.
I have high expectations.
Seriously. I was pretty freaking ticked the first time I saw the trailer. I thought they'd just turned it into a Constantine rip-off.
I was really hoping they'd do a pretty straight adaptation, purple prose and everything. Guess not.
You know, the only movie I've seen that was great with captions was Nightwatch. The way the meat hit the wall and the captions were there? Awesome. I know it's hard to format text and all, but more movies should take a page from Nightwatch's book. Best fucking captions ever.
Damnit.
I might have been interested with him, and the video game narratives. Otherwise, meh.
The punchline to this better be that you then watch them, and realise how right they were.
At least not until games are as old as comics
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
I hated that part where you were tied up and weaponless. It took me forever to get out of that.
I mean really, put the narrative in DURING the action sequences if you have to, it will fill up the time during the slo-mo portions.
I mean, Max Payne was about one night of destruction, IIRC. So blow more shit up!
I don't know, maybe they didn't have enough money.
Eh, I'm not saying there's been anything amazing come out of it, but you take something like Ebert's comments on Hitman, where he bitched out a bunch of things that he highlighted as obviously being taken from the game. Things that were in no-way aspects of Hitman.
Silent Hill wasn't brilliant, the barbed-wire rape was unnecessary and the exposition could've been better handled, but the OMG TRAVESTY that these things get portrayed as is completely retarded.
Well ACTUALLY in the books the 'demons' are genetically engineered by aliens to play on humanity's greatest fears, well greatest fears a thousand years ago. See space travel is pretty slow so it took that long to get an invasion force there from first contact.
And the whole reason for the war is an intergalatic conflict between all the other alien races who happen to be immortal and not have souls like we have. The conflict is over an interpretation of a book left behind by the First Race, who made the gates that feature so prominently in the games and books.
No I'm NOT kidding.
Honestly, it wasn't a bad stretch for fan-fiction expansion on a FPS.
The director is bowing out of Pirates of the Carribean 4 to focus on BioShock. PIRATES 4. DISNEY. IT PRINTS MONEY!!!!
The writer is also a really, really good writer.
It's gonna take one real good adaptation to be the 'Spider-Man' of video game movies. The one that gets it taken seriously, so that more actors and directors don't feel like it's a carrer killer to attach themselves to these projects.
The other thing is they really need to pick a franchise that has proved it deserves a movie, or has some staying power. Max Payne is pretty much irrelevant now. It's still good story, but when I first saw the trailer I was like "Wow, little late to the party guys."
I also really, really think if Peter Jackson's HALO ever gets made, it could become the Star Wars of this generation.
Reading his review (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/REVIEWS/711200303) the only bit he talks about from the computer game was "Other scenes, which involve Agent 47 striding down corridors, an automatic weapon in each hand, shooting down opponents who come dressed as Jedi troopers in black. These scenes are no doubt from the video game. The troopers spring into sight, pop up and start shooting, and he has target practice. He also jumps out of windows without knowing where he's going to land, and that feels like he's cashing in a chip he won earlier in the game." and that feels pretty much right (not entirely sure what he means by cashing in a chip - extra life?) and there were far worse scenes I could think of (the samurai sword fight in the train cart).
The bit I'm suprised about is everyone complaining about how that it's not a shoot'em'up copycat. I thought people wanted a hard boiled detective story, it sounds like people are complaining that it's not a video of someone playing the game with more realistic graphics.
(fight scene spoiler)
And Ebert can eat a sack of dicks re: Hitman.
This is objective fact
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Yeah, but the female love interest was smokin' hot.
It had Timothy Olymphant, thus it cannot suck by definition.
There's someone who didn't see Die Hard 4
or Gone in 60 seconds
or Rock Star
or Scream 2
or A Man Apart
etc
I get that, I'm just trying to point out that the spoiler is over 7 years old. Howabouts you get onto the guy 3 posts above me for mentioning the opening scene. Eh? EH?!
Ah well. In other news, I don't really know if Markie Mark had any heart put into this movie or not. Reserved judgement says yes, but then again, he didn't really act in "The Happening" - this could be another wallet-padding role.
She's also the new Bond girl.
So I suppose now is the time to point out Mila Kunis is in Max Payne. Not sure if she's breaking her mold too much, but I don't think she should be the pick for Mona. Of course, my pick would be Milla Jovovich, but let's not typecast an actress more than she already is.