Critics trash Max Payne film

By Robert Purchese Published 20 October, 2008

Tops US box office nonetheless.

Critics have sullied what appears on paper to be a successful opening weekend for the Max Payne film.

The big-screen adaptation took USD 18 million to top the US box office, according to Reuters, but the average review score is a pitiful 3/10.

Rolling Stone calls Max Payne a "career low" for lead actor Mark Wahlberg, who wears "a scowl that could have been painted on digitally with more expressiveness".

"If you stay and watch the endless end credits, there's a short scene that hints a sequel is coming. That's what I call real pain," added the review. One star out of five.

Max Payne also stars Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Family Guy actress Mila Kunis, plus Beau Bridges, rapper Ludacris and new Bond girl Olga Kurylenko.

Max Payne opens across the UK on 14th November.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • jonsaan #1 3 years ago

    Probably means it's really entertaining tbh.
    Edited by 1 at 20/10/08 @ 11:19

  • EzyRyder #2 3 years ago

    The trailer looked good ... oh well, I will wait for Quantum of Solace.

  • rudedudejude #3 3 years ago

    Sounds good and in line with the game from what i've read so far, looking forward to it.

    Critics are usually mole type people that rarely leave their house. Have you even seen that small bald mole type guy that looks like norbert?

  • Nillsens #4 3 years ago

    Although it quite faithfully follows the game plot it falls short on what made the game great.

    Not enough metaphors and not enough shooting.

  • superjag86 #5 3 years ago

    Don't really care about the film, just hope Max Payne 3 will be decent as I loved the first two!

  • JonFE #6 3 years ago

    Did Remedy release that Alan Wake trailer at the Finnish premiere of Max Payne? Any links?

  • muscleblade #7 3 years ago

    Watched it on Saturday. It wasnt total shit but very mediocre and forgettable.

  • Tomo #8 3 years ago

    Dammit. I thought this looked genuinely excellent from the trailers :/

  • Meho #9 3 years ago

    It is a distinctly bad film, watched it on Friday. The plot is taken from the first game, along with the characters, but then the actual development of the plot is different to the game and the characters are ridiculously mischaracterised. The dialogues are wooden, and the action is lacking (as Nillsens put it "Not enough metaphors and not enough shooting. ";) so two great defining features of the Max payne games are simply not there.

  • mkreku #10 3 years ago

    I'm going to see this merely because Mila Kunis is in it. She's lovely.

  • Darren #11 3 years ago

    Doom was awful... House of the Dead was tripe... Alone in the Dark was deplorable... Hitman was absolute cack... and now Max Payne isn't very good either. Really doesn't surprise me at all. The games were fine if mostly style over substance but they never struck me as being particularly suitable for a movie adaptation really.

  • Pike #12 3 years ago

    Max Payne, style over substance? Hardly. The second game was not only a rock solid shooter but also had one of the best narratives ever in the history of video games. It was a clever andsophisticated noir story that managed to both parody and celebrate the genre. It was full of brilliant little touches, like all the meta commentaries in the TV shows. Story wise it was far ahead of the majority of action movies that are released by hollywood today.

    That doesn't mean the movie was any good though. I suspect it missed all clever subtleties of thee games and is just a gloomy action movie.

  • Ninja_Tino #13 3 years ago

    It annoys me that 99% of critics will say 'another bad game based movie, games are terrible and lackluster, never have a good story, are for children and imbecles'. Films like this have to stop. Hell, they just don't work full stop

  • mainaman #14 3 years ago

    The thing that sucks most is that it is a PG13 movie,a family-friendly Max Payne motion picture!!!

  • Slipstream #15 3 years ago

    I'd also like to 'trash' that image in the Latest videos section for this game, it looks as cheesy as hell!

  • Cappy #16 3 years ago

    Oh well.

    I never enjoyed the game so a disappointing film adaptation is hardly dragging a good name through the dirt. I wonder why they still bother trying to adapt game to film, it never quite works despite the best intentions.

  • Dynamize #17 3 years ago

    Mila Kunis as Mona Sax? Wow, that's probably the worst casting I've ever seen.

  • Kill_Crazy #18 3 years ago

    Game to movie adaptations never work. Well, apart from Resident Evil as i like those but that may just be me ;)

  • Ryze #19 3 years ago

    It's normally just that the wrong people are involved just because it's a 'video game'

    A shit movie is a shit movie. It's possible to take a very basic non-story and make a decent movie - just don't butcher the story and don't break the rules of teh world.

    Decent script and humour can save the day. Less of the US cheese can also help - so Hollywood is what ruins game to movie translations.

    Hollywood American cheese.

    Look what Michael Bay did to Transformers! Just because it was a kid's toy, eh?

  • [TR] #20 3 years ago

    The movie isn't all bad, but like Meho said, the characters parts in the story are altered. And although that was needed for the plot to be shortened for the movie it greatly reduces the impact of most of them. Games offer a broader time span in which to tell a story if the gameplay doesn't put players off, but the changes made to accommodate the transition here were not for the best, unfortunately. In the end the familiar twist from the last part of the game is transformed into a stupid Hollywood cliché.
    I was also a bit surprised with the choice of Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne and Mila Kunis as Mona Sax. They're not bad, but then the movie itself doesn't demand much more than what they give, performance wise.
    A good thing is that they managed to make the sets look a lot like the game's various levels.

  • the_mtfr #21 3 years ago

    I guess they should have hired the original writer, Sam Lake I think he was called. Sort of a genius.

    Doom and Mortal Kombat (the first) are the only movies adapted from games I can think of right now that I liked. I had huge hopes for Max Payne after I saw the trailer. So frustrating that another unbelievable-quality-level idea goes down the shit hole in Hollywood. Maybe they should try trashing the next ones (Half-Life, Bioshock, you know, something good) in Bollywood, what the hell, what's there to lose any more?

  • Maledictus010 #22 3 years ago

    Based on the comments posted here i wonder how many of the posters have actually seen the movie...
    I've been to see it yesterday and it's definitely not as bad as is pictured here and in the reviews. In fact, it's one of the best game to movie adaptations i've seen (which isn't saying much, i know, tomb raider comes to mind...) and i had a good time watching it. There's enough of the game in there though it's not a straight game to movie translation, for obvious reasons. The visuals are okay and the gloomy atmosphere is well portrayed. It can't be compared to other recent action films/masterpieces but it's not meant to be. If you view this film with the right mindset and the realization that it's closest competitors are tripe pictures like tomb raider, mortal kombat, dungeons and dragons etc. it's actually quite enjoyable. Or maybe it's just because i like gloomy color pallettes...

  • actionfitz #23 3 years ago

    Video game movie in Ass-sucking shocker!

  • MrScruffier #24 3 years ago

    "Have you even seen that small bald mole type guy that looks like norbert?"

    Eddie Murphy?