Much Pain

They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger. And then it was all over.

And it was, but those were the opening lines to the video game, and NOT the movie. I'm a huge fan of the games, really. Like many, though, I considered the first to be superior by far, but the second was still great. I mean, come on, bullet-time, Captain Baseball-bat Boy, Russians and Italians and moaning women? Can't get much better than that.

The movie, however, failed to encapsulate all the things that made the game(s) so kickass. I will go through my list of complaints as I see fit, fuming and generally annoyed at the outcome of my internet booking.

Anyone who has played Max Payne will recognise that Mona Sax plays an integral role in the story, at least as important as Max himself. Then you see Mila Kunis walk on screen in some black jacket, trying to look like anything other than Jackie. Come on. You cast someone famed for playing a short teenage bimbo as Mona Sax??? The same Mona Sax who is at least as high up there as Chun-Li or Lara Croft or Mrs Pac-Man? She's supposed to be like a leather-clad mysterious Chuck Norris-esque killing machine, not a high-school cheerleader.

OK, wait. I'll back up. Mila Kunis does have the Mona Sax look (window scene), but the on-screen Mona is written to be more impotent than important. She does have the trademark Uzi, but no red-leather. Sigh. It's also quite sad (but I'm not exactly complaining) that Mona's on-screen sister attracts much more attention than her. Olga Kurylenko seems to play the stripping Russian hottie perfectly.

Remember how Max Payne was perhaps the first thing after The Matrix to make use of bullet time? How cool it was to see someone dodging bullets and blasting baddies to oblivion (and the slow-mo deaths)? Yeah. Almost no bullet time in the film. Cept once where he jumps to shoot a door. And where he runs towards someone.

Speaking of shooting, it seems that the villians in the film are totally incapable of taking aim and firing with any sort of accuracy. I know that the hero almost never gets hit anyway, but when someone with a military rifle, on an elevated platform, with a scope, can fire three times and miss an un-moving target, from behind, it just goes to show that henchmen are trained by the incompetant. Maybe that's why there was so little bullet time in the film. He didn't need it.

No painkillers. WTF.

Lastly, one gets the distinct impression that alot of thought (and cash) went into making the film very Sin City-ish. While that isn't a bad thing - and to be honest, the movie looks good - for most of the film, the detail of the falling snow or feathers is far superior than the actual storytelling. The original game had a solid plot, probably one of the best one's I've ever had the pleasure of going through in any video game (fuck you, Metal Gear Solid), the film, for some strange reason beyond my limited intelligence, chooses to deviate from what was an established, enjoyable, awesome story and mix up how everyone in the story was tied to one another. In the end, you get a badly-rushed bad story (less than two hours) with a questionable and expected plot "twist", buffered by lacklustre action scenes.

AND JIM BRAVURA IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE BLACK.

God Dammit.

At least it was better than Hitman.

2.5/5