![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Review: Max Payne (Movie)
Oct. 19th, 2008 02:31 pmWell that was a big disappointment – and in so many baffling ways. Max Payne the game is, after all, intentionally designed to feel like a film, so it should have been child’s play to make it into actual cinema, right? Instead, we get this mess, which somehow manages to have a shallower storyline than the video game while also having less action.
Sure, maybe you’ve got to make some changes; strip out some of the story to simplify things. But half the game is missing! The Punchinello family? Gone! Vladimir Lem and the Russian mob? Gone! The Inner Circle and Alfred Woden? Gone! Nicole Horn, the main villain of the game is reduced to a cameo.
But hey; it’s an adaptation. It doesn’t have to follow the exact same path, as long as it has some of the same feel, right? Well, unfortunately, the film fails there too. Other than the opening scene, there’s no narration, no noir voice over. Payne isn’t alone against the night; he may be pursuing his own goals, but the plot device of him being suspected of his partner’s death doesn’t go anywhere. In general, the movie lacks the bleak feel of the game.
Further weakening the bleakness of the setting is the loss of most of the Norse myth references. As I mentioned, Woden is gone altogether. Some of the names survive the adaptation, but the writers were apparently unaware of their significance – for example, while Max’s partner still dies, it’s not the first murder of the movie – the reference of everything being driven by the death of (Alex) Balder is lost. Also missing is harshfimbulwinter storm, resulting in both the loss of a Norse reference and a reduction in the feel of Payne being isolated and alone against a hostile world…
So what does the film do well? Well, Payne and Mona Sax are both well cast, and the woman playing Nicole Horn is a dead ringer for the game’s villain – so god knows why she doesn’t get to play that part here. The hallucinatory valkyries are suitably nightmarish, and an interesting interpretation of the Valkyr drug. It’s one of the few new ideas the film has that actually improves on the game. The set designers are obviously using some of the game levels as inspiration; there’s V for Valkyr graffiti everywhere, and some areas are almost perfect replicas of the relevant levels.
In general, though, the movie seems determined to abandon a perfectly good storyline and atmosphere for its own innovations; such a shame that what it ends up producing is greatly inferior to what it rejected.
On the plus side, since they’ve ignored practically all the game’s storyline and characters, they could always use them properly in a sequel…
Sure, maybe you’ve got to make some changes; strip out some of the story to simplify things. But half the game is missing! The Punchinello family? Gone! Vladimir Lem and the Russian mob? Gone! The Inner Circle and Alfred Woden? Gone! Nicole Horn, the main villain of the game is reduced to a cameo.
But hey; it’s an adaptation. It doesn’t have to follow the exact same path, as long as it has some of the same feel, right? Well, unfortunately, the film fails there too. Other than the opening scene, there’s no narration, no noir voice over. Payne isn’t alone against the night; he may be pursuing his own goals, but the plot device of him being suspected of his partner’s death doesn’t go anywhere. In general, the movie lacks the bleak feel of the game.
Further weakening the bleakness of the setting is the loss of most of the Norse myth references. As I mentioned, Woden is gone altogether. Some of the names survive the adaptation, but the writers were apparently unaware of their significance – for example, while Max’s partner still dies, it’s not the first murder of the movie – the reference of everything being driven by the death of (Alex) Balder is lost. Also missing is harsh
So what does the film do well? Well, Payne and Mona Sax are both well cast, and the woman playing Nicole Horn is a dead ringer for the game’s villain – so god knows why she doesn’t get to play that part here. The hallucinatory valkyries are suitably nightmarish, and an interesting interpretation of the Valkyr drug. It’s one of the few new ideas the film has that actually improves on the game. The set designers are obviously using some of the game levels as inspiration; there’s V for Valkyr graffiti everywhere, and some areas are almost perfect replicas of the relevant levels.
In general, though, the movie seems determined to abandon a perfectly good storyline and atmosphere for its own innovations; such a shame that what it ends up producing is greatly inferior to what it rejected.
On the plus side, since they’ve ignored practically all the game’s storyline and characters, they could always use them properly in a sequel…
Other notes:
- Why is Valkyr blue? The game's radioactive green gets across "This will fuck you up" a lot more clearly than the movie's dishwashing liquid blue...
- I'm fairly sure this is the only mainstream film I've ever seen where the hero would have failed in stopping the bad guys if he hadn't decided to start taking drugs...
