Why It's Awful: Where to begin? The murder of Max Payne's (Mark Wahlberg) family occurs at the start of the game, but is pushed to the mid-point here for no reason, then there's the unbelievable lack of action, the totally inappropriate casting of Mila Kunis as Mona Sax (she's too young and cute, and looks ridiculous in the get-up she's forced to wear), and the inclusion of maybe-supernatural entities called Valkyries, who never appeared in the games at all. Despite so much promise (and visual splendour), Max Payne was a total failure. The Remake: Simple: stick to the loose format of the original game, cut down on the lame dialoguing, and ramp up the set-pieces. If the original movie only had around 15 minutes of action, double or even triple that for this one, cast an older, sexier actress as Sax, and leave out the Valkyries. There's one key problem, though, that including too many bullet-time sequences will simply cause critics and non-fans of the game to dismiss it as John Woo rip-off, so whoever directs it needs to use the technique sparingly.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
