Max Payne

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Chris 'Ludacris' 

Directed by: John Moore (The Omen)

Premise: Max Payne, an undercover DEA agent, is framed for the murder of a fellow agent and seeks to avenge the Mafia slayings of his wife and child.

[Kal]

When I played that game ages ago I already thought of how cool a movie would be... trailer looks good so hopefully I wont be too disappointed with it.

[cron]

marlo's in it!

yeah i'm in.

[picolas]

wow.. that was really faithful. i have higher hopes for this now. it looks like they're actually trying to enhance the spirit of the game by making it real. i've always thought the cutscenes within the game itself would make a pretty good movie if they were just directly copied. this is visually taking it a step further.

i mean. it'll likely be shit. but really good-looking shit.

[MacGuffin]

First look: 'Max Payne' makes leap from video game to film
Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

Comic-book fans aren't the only nerds with Hollywood knocking at their doors for material.
Video-game enthusiasts are finding their fare more popular than ever as Max Payne leads a wave of big-screen adaptations.

Payne stars Mark Wahlberg in the title role as a DEA agent who teams with an assassin (Mila Kunis) to solve a string of murders.

On its heels are film versions of popular games Gears of War and Bioshock. Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) is expected to direct War, due next year, while Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) has been tapped to direct Bioshock, slated for 2010.

Wahlberg concedes he was not a Payne gamer but says one of his assistants "plays it all the time, and I probably watched him play more than I should. It's got a story line more complex than most video-game movies."

Whether that's enough for box-office success is uncertain. Game adaptations tend to be feast (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, $131 million) or famine (BloodRayne, $2 million).

Kunis says it's daunting trying to please video-game fans.

"I made the mistake of stumbling on an Internet site of fans and what they thought of the casting," she says. "I hope I don't cross them on the street before the movie. Maybe they'll change their minds when I'm in leather pants and bustier."

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer here.

[picolas]

yup. good looking shit.

[w/o horse]

When it comes to Max Payne I'm planning for the best, expecting the worst.

This feels like the first videogame film consciously derivative of the comic book formula (because Tomb Raider predates the comic-film boom and because there hasn't been a Uwe Boll or anyone else's videogame film I've considered seeing).  Mac's post two posts ago basically confirms this.

[MacGuffin]

Meh. A story told many times before. Never played the videogame, but to me it felt like nothing that wasn't done better by Sin City and Constantine. Should have had Olga Kurylenko and Mila Kunis switch roles.

[private witt]

Max Payne.  Is that what I'll experience when I watch it, or was is something other than just another recycled revenge vehicle?