Max Payne is hell bent on avenging the brutal murder of his wife and little baby and is willing to sacrifice anything to see justice be served. But three years after the murder, he stumbles upon a cover-up that will destroy everything he thought he believed in.

The Max Payne video game was actually the reason I bought a PS2. I remember being at a friend’s house and seeing him play it and then running out the next day and buying the PS2 and a copy of the game. I played the game for hours/days/weeks/months and loved every second of it. But as we all know too well, a fun video game does not equate to a good movie.

There are several aspects of the film you can take issue with. For me, the three year lapse between the murder and the movie was a little long and we spent too much time trying to fill in the three year gap. Even though they wanted to pick up where the action started, it would have been a better film had we picked up the day after his family was murdered and then just jumped into it. The other big issue with the film was Mila Kunis’s character. I love Kunis and I think she’s a decent actress and beautiful to boot. However, her character was nothing but a distraction. She wasn’t thought out or written very well and the movie grinded to a halt every time she appeared on screen. There was also a laughable scene where Kunis was trying to shoot a gun. She looked so uncomfortable that she might as well have been throwing tomatoes at the bad guys.

Visually speaking, I loved it. I really liked the “idea” of having the phantom demons haunt the addicts and I enjoyed the black and white style of filmmaking. Aside from a few lazy CGI shots, the film looked really cool. But the demon thing is tough to pull off, especially when it’s not consistent. Rather than use shadows, they would have been better served using physical demons (like in the window scene). It would have heightened the intensity and given some validity to the stress the addicts were feeling.

Overall, the film is not horrible. The Max Payne video game didn’t have much of a storyline anyway, so it’s not like they destroyed the source material. I think they needed a simpler script and smoother action sequences, but what they had was moderately enjoyable. Don’t go in expecting DIE HARD, and you’ll be okay.

Video: Widescreen (1.85:1): The Blu-ray looks amazing with the exception of a few scenes, mostly when CGI was heavily used.

Audio: English 5.1 TrueHD with English subtitles: The audio was wonderful.

Commentary with John Moore, Daniel Dorrance, Everett Burrell: These guys seem like good guys, but their commentary is a little boring. They explain every aspect of just about every scene and it would have been nice to hear more of a focus on the story. I think aspiring filmmakers will get more out of this than anyone else.

Movie Featurette (59:40): This was not your typical making of featurette…not by any means. John Moore was pretty funny with his anti-DVD stance. I’d never really seen anyone take that kind of attitude, but it was refreshing. The featurette is almost filmed like a movie and was very interesting to watch. There’s no narration and not a whole lot of dialogue, but it’s pretty good.

Michelle Payne Graphic Novel (13:40): This is the slightly animated version of the Michelle Payne graphic novel. It was okay. It basically just acted out her murder, which isn’t exactly the most uplifting thing to watch.

Walkthroughs and Cheats (53:24): They included some of the making of featurettes as an option within the movie. Or, you can watch them separately. These kind of follow the mentality of the longer featurette in that there’s no commentary and it’s really just a camera rolling and you get to watch the people make the movie. I thought it was really cool and I had a good time watching them.

There are some Previews

This is a rental if there ever was one. It has plenty of problems, but it has enough action and visuals to keep you modestly entertained.