I cannot honestly remember consciously choosing to add "Max Payne" to my lovefilm list. However, it arrived in our post box, so I'm guessing that my rationalisation was that the film would appeal to both my husband and myself. We both tend to appreciate the action film noire genre to which "Max Payne" belongs and are never looking for anything overly heavy during term time (my husband is a teacher). Neither of us has any familiarity with the game on which the film was based. We tend to enjoy adaptations of graphic novels that fall into this genre, "Sin City" springs to mind. However, I think perhaps the filmmakers underestimated the difference between adapting a graphic novel and a game. One has a strong plot, character development and underlying themes that are easily accessible, the other is perhaps weaker in this area.

SO SHOULD I SEE IT?
Obviously I have already started to give my opinion on the film. It's impossible to lay out the premise without pointing out that the premise is rather weak and poorly developed. I've already said that I enjoy films of this genre. I like the sleek, stylised aspects of such films and the way that action film noire often manages to juxtapose great action sequences with wry, sarcastic humour and yet still allow you to connect with the characters. I don't think "Max Payne" managed to accomplish any of these things.
In order to engage with a revenge film one must first connect with the hero and in some way empathise with his question. When a man has lost his beautiful wife and baby you'd think this connection would be quite easy to create, but I just didn't care. Perhaps it's because it took to long to get to the clichéd flash back of happier times. Maybe it's because too many Ukrainian (totally thought they were Russian but imdb says Ukrainian) bombshells were thrown in before we managed to properly establish Payne's back story. I am tempted to believe some of the fault lies with Wahlberg who gave his usual performance in this film... mediocre. My husband calls Mark Wahlberg "that guy who's trying to be Matt Damon and not quite getting there". To clarify, my husband's not even all that keen on Matt Damon!
Having failed to connect with Payne, as a viewer, I largely shut off. I found my attention wandering. I think at one point I lost five minutes of the film as I read dooyoo reviews of the film, which were significantly more entertaining than the dvd. It's hard to comment on the other performances as it seemed that many fairly strong actors were given little to work with. I've seen Mila Kunis and Olga Kurylenko give stronger performances than this. Beau Bridges played the baddie in such a stereotypical manner it was almost funny (though failed to be funny in the way that something like "The Spirit" managed to make its baddies funny). The film had a decent cast, but all this meant was that I spent half the film trying to identify familiar faces (Chris O'Donnell, Nellie Fertado and Ludacris to name a few) and think of better films (or music videos) they'd been in!
There are some lovely pieces of camera work and cgi in this film. You get the feeling that it would make for a great graphic novel visually. Winged creatures and slow action scenes give a great other-worldly feel. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to go anywhere overly new or exciting. You get the feeling you've seen this film before, only better.