A ‘Payne’-ful experience

The commonly held belief that movies based on video games are bad is upheld with “Max Payne.”

If anything, this shockingly subpar movie strengthens such theories.

The film, by director John Moore (“Flight of the Phoenix”), follows Detective Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg, “The Departed”) as he hunts through the criminal underworld trying to avenge the murder of his wife and child.

Payne teams up with Russian assassin Mona Sax (Mila Kunis, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”), who is searching for her sister’s killer, who just may be the same person Payne is pursuing.

Moore goes a long way to undermine every moral theme that is built up during the movie. The plot revolves around a new street drug that causes people to hallucinate and die, but turns a very small percentage of users into super-powered killers.

This is mildly interesting in the first two acts, but when the hero Payne takes the drug himself and becomes a fire-breathing killing machine, it’s a pretty eyebrow-raising message about the positive advantages of using drugs.

Questionable morals aside, the movie just is not good at all. The plot is generic and poorly paced, and there’s nothing here that couldn’t have been written by a bored 14-year-old.

This trigger-happy detective story basically plays out like a “Punisher” movie, but even less intelligent.

Out of it’s 85-minute running time, the movie is actually about 65 minutes long, with an additional 20 minutes of unnecessary slow-motion shots of guns being fired and hallucinations of demons.

The acting ranges from mediocre to terrible, with Wahlberg coming out the best. Although the Oscar-nominated actor doesn’t bring his A-game, or even his B-game, he scowls and grimaces his way through the movie without doing any real damage.

Through the mediocre acting by stunt-casted name-actors, flashy but pointless special effects and unengaging action sequences, it becomes clear that “Max Payne” is all style and no substance – but the style isn’t even that appealing.

As far as shoot-em-up action flicks go, “Max Payne” makes “Shoot ‘Em Up” look intelligent, “The Punisher” well-acted and “Wanted” Oscar-worthy. The only possible reason that this schlock wasn’t released direct-to-DVD was Wahlberg’s name on top of it.

One star out of Five