Poor Mark Wahlberg. Ever since he obtained a fully deserved Oscar nomination for The Departed, he has struggled to hit it as big again: Shooter was enjoyable but unmistakably shallow, We Own the Night received very mixed reactions, and The Happening was one of the most unjustly panned movies of 2008 (well, minus the plastic plant scene). None of those, however, is as bad as Max Payne, which just about tails The Truth About Charlie for the title of Wahlberg's career low.

But hey, few people expected Payne to be any good in the first place. For starters, it's based on a video game, and those never turn out well on film. Secondly, it's directed by John Moore, whose body of work is all but encouraging (he remade The Omen, for crying out loud). Plus, it comes off as a mix of fantasy, action and revenge thriller - in short, a mess.

For those not familiar with the game, the story centers on the titular cop (Wahlberg),a brilliant homicide detective who's been reassigned after the brutal murder of his wife and kid. When a Ukrainian girl (Olga Kurylenko) is found dead with his wallet in her pocket, he's immediately charged with the murder, and the only way to clear himself is to find a thug named Lupino (Amaury Nolasco),who might even have something to do with Mrs. Payne's death (go figure..).

With some minor adjustments, this could easily be the latest installment of Death Wish. If only things were that simple: the plot is twisted even more with a subplot concerning a mind-altering drug called Valkyr, which makes everything look like Hell on screen and destroys Norse mythology's credibility off screen. Then again, decent scripts are rare when it comes to this sort of flick, so Moore is supposed to redeem himself with visuals and action scenes: in the first case, he delivers more than enough; in the second, he disappoints, and big time - not counting the first ten minutes and the last twenty, there's a serious lack of pace and ass-kicking.

Last but not least, the acting. Wahlberg does pretty much the same he did in Shooter: gritty and watchable, but never exploits his huge potential. Mila Kunis, who plays the "Payne girl" (sorry, couldn't resist),is totally miscast, being too young and with the wrong background (That '70s Show),except for the fact that she is of Ukrainian descent like her on-screen sister Kurylenko. Beau Bridges, generally a fine presence, manages the unenviable task of becoming worse as the picture progresses, and Nolasco's villain is as lifeless as they come (and let's not even get started on Ludicrous' "acting").

Long story short: if this were a game, it would reach the "Game over" stage after twenty minutes. Compared to this, even Tomb Raider looks decent enough.

Mark Wahlberg plays popular game hero Max Payne, a cop who sets out to find the man who killed his wife and child, while doing so he uncovers a potential conspiracy that could lead him to the killer.

While Max Payne boasts a great tone, atmosphere and great cinematography, the overall film wasn't really all that great, the acting was tough to judge, there were some good performances but the actors seem like they didn't have much to work with, the action scenes are minimal, and was just a ton of shooting and they weren't all that exciting, however if you are interested in this film, you can watch it, but I feel that there are better options.

Without comparing it to the game, I felt they could have done more to make it a bit more interesting and exciting, and possibly add more to Max Payne's back story and they could've been more inventive with the action scenes instead of making people just shoot at each other.

Otherwise, its a good concept and is well shot, but the execution needed a little more work.

MAX PAYNE is the movie adaptation of a popular video game. And if that's not enough to put you off watching it, I don't know what is. Game adaptations don't have the best cinematic reputation out there. In fact, I can't think of a single decent one off the top of my head; the one that springs to mind foremost in relation to this film is the 2007 film Hit-man, which turned out to be very poor indeed. Max Payne isn't quite that bad, but it is a trite and predictable movie with a cookie-cutter plot and no real focus to the narrative.

The story is about a grieving cop who lost his wife to some nefarious bad guys. He becomes involved in a plot involving an illicit drug that, surprise surprise, turns out to have some relation to his wife's death, and the film goes from there. But despite a fairly shot running time (1 hour 40 minutes to be precise),the plot is meandering and the action sequences are anything but exciting. They're supposed to feel dynamic, over the top, and are often depicted via slow motion, but they're also bland and sanitised in order to garner a PG-13 rating. It's like a dog biting you without any teeth.

Wahlberg is okay as the hero, but he doesn't bring much to the part. He's no better or worse than an out-for-revenge Seagal in one of his early efforts. The supporting cast is notable for either being cast for their looks (Mila Kunis and Olga Kurylenko make good sisters, I admit) or half-recognisable past it types (Beau Bridges and Chris O'Donnell, what are you doing here?). The addition to the narrative of some dream-type sequences involving fiery demons is an unwelcome distraction to the otherwise grounded storyline and feels like an effort to add a bit of CONSTANTINE to an otherwise mundane film.