Max Payne Lives Up to Its Name

Critics slam video game-based action flick
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 17, 2008 7:17 PM CDT
Max Payne Lives Up to Its Name
In this image released by 20th Century Fox, Amaury Nolasco stars as drug kingpin Jack Lupino in a scene from "Max Payne."   (AP Photo/Michael Gibson)

Max Payne, a sci-fi shooter video game-turned-movie, is “undiluted junk,” writes Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News. “No amount of generosity could excuse the levels of ineptitude on display here,” she says of the Mark Wahlberg vehicle. “The story has more holes than a shot-up metal door, the acting feels bored at best, and the intermittent action, while passable, hardly makes up for the downtime.”

“Woe to the moviegoer who shows up” to the film, writes Sam Adams of the LA Times. As for its visuals, the film “is so dark it looks as if the negative were dropped in a puddle of ink.” Writing in the New York Times, AO Scott offers some perspective: “It’s not an especially good movie, but such a judgment is not really relevant to its ambitions.”
(More film stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X