The big screen adaptation of Max Payne, which stars Mark Wahlberg, took the box office by storm, taking #1, pulling in $18 million, and surprising critics who panned the movie. The movie only took $35 million to produce which begs the question, "Will there be a sequel?".

What are your thoughts on this adaptation?

A movie based on a video game based on a camera trick from a movie.

Anything that can beat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTQVbxeyou8 is worth watching.

It's amazing what things they will make into movies anymore. Hell, the way Pixar is they could probably take a piece of dryer lint, add a voice and stretch it out 2 hours and make a fortune from it.

Hey, you watch your mouth regarding Pixar, you hear me kid!?! >:(

You can badmouth those jackasses at Dreamworks all you want, but Pixar always makes sure they have a story to tell besides having a 2-hour tech demo, and story-wise no movie from them so far could be called anything near "bad".

No insult intended, actually I am a fan of their movies especially Monsters Inc., I'm just commenting on how they can tell a story from just about everything and so far they haven't had a flop *bite my tongue, bite my tongue*. Oh and thanks for calling me kid, makes me feel young, lol.

I remain skeptical of "Cars".

I'm with you Rowan... I adore The Incredibles though.

Hey, I loved Cars! Vrrrrrmmm.....

eh, Wall-E was so so I think

You are correct, Chico, but you have to understand that Max Payne wasn't that good. It was so so. It had a nice buildup which eventually went nowhere and the gun fights are pretty pathetic for a theatrical movie. Heck I've seen TV movies/Direct to video with better action scenes.

Verdict....2/5.

Reminds me of "John Woo goes to hollywood".

Has anyone seen this movie around here? I need an opinion from someone I respect before I believe it's as bad as everyone and their dog is saying.

Really, I can't believe they could ruin a Max Payne adaptation. Jesus, Max Payne is a tribute to crappy action/noir movies to begin with, if you can't make a decent action/noir movie out of that game, then we're really screwed :T

Erm... I thought the news article was saying that it was surprisingly good? I understood "surprised critics who panned the movie" as, it surprised those critics who panned the movie in advance, before having seen it. Am I wrong?

Edit: I just found this very interesting comment on IMDb: "But the reviews will be terrible. Every time a movie based on a game is released, critics bash it. OK, most of the time it's justified, but here, I can assure you it won't be. Some reviews I've read are straying from the film, and talking about how games shouldn't ever be movies because they have NO emotional impact or artist and creative purpose. A: this is a completely idiotic, false, and ignorant statement, and B: this has nothing to do with the film being reviewed! SHOOT EM UP and WANTED got very strong reviews which they wouldn't have if they were based on games (and they were essential video games!). MAX PAYNE is better than both of those, but will get pummeled critically do to the format it's source material is on. That's just stupid."

The question is whether the critics Big John cited were ones who had previously screened the movie before panning or were just pulling prejudice out of their ass. Comics were previously seen as a similar ghetto -- the film companies tried hard to dissuade anyone from realising that the The Road To Perdition was based on a comic, while in a recent turnaround 30 Days of Night proudly proclaimed its comic book origin despite the fact that no one had ever heard of the comic it was based on. Maybe games will eventually experience a similar critical re-evaluation.

To me I just think they criticized this movie just because it was based off a video game and didn't have a "superstar" actor or actress as the lead role. But I think the reason they think that a video game adaptation is inherently bad is for good reason. Super Mario Bros., Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation just to a name a few, I think when they see those words they instantly think of these movies. But I'm actually surprised they think that since Tomb Raider and Hitman are the exceptions. I've been wanting to watch this movie, but I've been hesitant just because of that. I might just break down and go watch it, hell it can't be worse than Quarantine.

... but it had MARKY MARK! That's A+ superstardom right there!

... What?