Max Payne: Review By SupermanEmpire

Mark Wahlberg has certainly built a decent reputation for himself as an actor to be taken seriously. Not an easy task for a guy that went from street thug, to underwear model, and then on to being a 90’s staple of hip hop style rap whom went by the oh so infamous handle of “Marky Mark”. When Wahlberg finally broke into the film scene, it was the interesting and occasionally risky acting roles he took on in films like Fear, Boogie Nights, Three Kings and The Perfect Storm that had him begging to be a leading man in Hollywood. Mark Wahlberg has built an impressive filmography list that has broken down barriers and stereotypes that can halt any young actor’s film career. Throwing away the embarrassing baggage of his youth, Wahlberg grew and showed his increasing maturity with each role he took. Like any break out superstar he choose a few bad flicks to attach himself to (Planet of the Apes remake comes to mind), but for the most part Wahlberg has continued on into 2007 making sound judgments as to the projects he’s involved with. Rock Star, The Italian Job, Four Brothers, Invincible, and of course The Departed (the film that earned him a “best supporting actor” Oscar nomination) all stand out as solid turn out performances by Wahlberg, then we enter 2008 which has been, what we would call a not so good year for Marky Mark. First Wahlberg was the leading man in M. Night Shama-lama-ding-dong's The Happening, which was for lack of a better word…weak. That film failed on many levels, a strong factor being the not so strong performance from Wahlberg, but hey the guys had a good streak so a hic-up every now and then...not a big deal. Now comes the fall film season and Marky Mark’s next leading role as Max in the video game adaptation Max Payne. To be honest going on a full bore negative tangent about how terrible this movie is would just be a complete waste of mine and your time, so I’m not going do that. Instead I’ll give you the “just” of how bad it is as to prevent you from wasting any of your precious time off from work watching this total P.O.S. Strong words, maybe…but very true. Max Payne had a typical “Sci-Fi channel quality” storyline set in a badly CG’d film noir style modern day New York City (I doubt if one shot of this film was done in NY City). While attempting to be deep and injecting present day issues and politics, the film completely fails in its “message” platform. Instead those injections of “Hot button” current events only come off in a poorly executed, laughable manner. The writers of this film should stick to their day jobs storyboarding RPG videogames, and writing political shtick for SNL. Seriously maybe one of the poorest storylines I’ve ever had to suffer through. In Mark Wahlberg’s defense I refuse to believe any actor could have pulled off a solid performance with such a poorly written, transparent, and unimportant character. I think one word describes this film as a whole….BLAH, just simply BLAH. I could have cared less about any of the characters, the setting, outcome, or any of it. I wouldn’t recommend seeing this paper thin, total and complete bomb. And if you choose not to heed my warning… that repugnant smell that works its way up into your nostrils will be a painful whiff of what Max Payne is cooking…trust me you wont want seconds.