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Max Payne Directed by John Moore, Starring Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Chris O’Donnell, Ludacris; Rating R16 – Violence & Offensive Language

Mark Wahlberg is Max Payne in this adaptation of the video game, a trend that we’re now seeing a lot of after franchises like Lara Croft, Resident Evil and Silent Hill. It’s normal to adapt comic books for the big screen and has been for decades; it was only a matter of time before Hollywood optioned the hell out of the third person shooter. After all, the storyboard action of a plot-driven video game is very close to a comic book or graphic novel. And by emulating features of the game — including the John Woo influence of “bullet time” — director John Moore (The Omen remake, Behind Enemy Lines) moves this dark action romp closer to The Matrix territory.

Max Payne has a plot similar in some ways to Marvel’s The Punisher. Payne is a cop, apparently on a desk job down in the cold case area, who’s actually spending most of his time investigating the murder of his family. The plot ties in with a super-drug that’s on the streets, which has the user seeing things, including scary stuff like large winged valkyries.

Payne is framed in a murder and hooks up with the leather coat-clad Mona Sax (Mila Kunis — Jackie from That 70s Show) who’s also trying to get to the bottom of things. It was cool seeing Kunis on the big screen; taller (in heels, anyway), older and more interesting looking, although she doesn’t add much beyond her striking looks to the film. The cast also includes Ludacris, Chris O’Donnell, and Beau Bridges as the head of security at a pharmaceutical company.

The plot is predictable and that rubs off on the production design. Based on the game and in turn referencing film noir and in particular Frank Miller’s graphic novel Sin City, it just looks cliche. CGI snowflakes get pretty boring after the first half hour, and dwelling on signs for Payne’s safe house or a fellow officer’s nameplate is just tedious. For an action movie, Max Payne moves incredibly slowly. Bullet time, you could say.

Mark Wahlberg can carry a weak script. He did precisely that with John Singleton’s Four Brothers, although he couldn’t quite lug that particular revenge flick all the way to its closing credits. But here, Wahlberg is acting up against darkened rooms and drug-induced CGI spectres rather than other actors. What Max Payne doesn’t achieve is to breathe real-world life into the main character or its Gotham-like setting of New York City. This adaptation remains as two-dimensional as the Max Payne game itself. And like the game, you can probably expect a sequel real soon.