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Max Payne a video game from 2001, which was very good

Max Payne is a movie from 2008, which isn’t very good.

Which is a bit odd, because honestly, if there was one game you'd describe as easy to make a movie of, Max Payne would be at the top of most lists.

And yet, somehow it ranks as one of the worst game to movie adaptations to date.

Even more impressive when you consider Uwe Boll had nothing to do with it.

How did they manage to get it so wrong?

Well…

The Game is a gritty neo-noir affair – It’s drenched in snow, shadow, and various layers of grime - But, it looks good - Well, it did for the time.

You play as the titular Max Payne

He’s a cop turned vigilante after his wife and child were murdered, when we find him he’s basically Half hard-boiled detective, half existential crisis.

He’s addicted to painkillers and while he’s not quite lost his sense of right and wrong, he’s not much for caring how the right gets done.

The game was built on a low budget by a relatively new game studio, Remedy Entertainment.

To keep the budget low they wouldn’t cut corners, but there’d be some shortcuts.

Sam Lake, the writer of the game used his own face in as Max to save the cost of employing someone

and instead of expensive to produce cut scenes for the game's story they’d use panels like a graphic novel.

The other characters in the game would be portrayed by other people in the Remedy team, or people close to them – Sam Lakes Mum even appears in some.

They’d be narrated, you wouldn’t be expected to sit there reading or anything like that.

Max would narrate through various sections of the game, and the bulk of the graphic novels - Other characters would have their own voices, but mostly Max.

His voice would come from James McCaffrey, who was a professional actor at least.

The game and the film aren’t the same - Close - But - Not the same.

The basic setup is the same.

After the death of his family Max in the game is working undercover with a crime family trying to find out who was responsible for this family's death.

In the film version he’s working cold cases while trying to find out the same.

Mark Wahlberg plays Max in the film - But, he doesn’t play him the same.

The narration is gone for starters, which - Yeah - If you’ve played the game it’s hard to imagine Max not internally growling his way through anything.

Mr Wahlberg would also admit to having never played the game, before or after taking on the role, which… I mean - Well, you would though, wouldn’t you?

His casting divides people, some think it was the right call, some don’t - I’m OK with it personally.

The game and the film both link the deaths of his family to a drug that is taking over the city known as Valkyr

In the games VALKEER is a drug that was developed by the military, supposedly as a way to give the users an advantage, but it fails after it’s discovered that it’s also responsible for giving people vivid and terrifying nightmares.

In the film, it’s a designer drug - The nightmare effects are visualised by literal demons, or Valkeries, eventually scaring the users to death.

Yeah - It’s all handled very differently and this is where the film starts playing fast and loose with everything.

And, not in a good way.

Most other characters from the game aren’t in the film, and the ones that are have been changed, almost beyond the point of recognition.

Mona Sax for example, a fan favourite from the game.

She’s a contract killer with her own agenda — sometimes an ally, sometimes not, complicated, but fun - A proper noir Femme Fetale.

Her relationship with Max is one of the series’ strongest threads. In fact, she carries a lot of the emotional weight in the second game which could easily have been brought in here.

And perhaps that's one of the biggest disappointments here, because in the games she's a central character.

The film? She’s played by Mila Kunis, but she’s barely more than background noise.

It starts off on the right foot, she’s hired to kill Max after the death of her sister - But, as for the events after that - Well, the filmmakers didn’t understand how important she was to the story at all.

Max and Mona’s relationship is something that gave the game's heart. A reason for you to care.

Strip her back and demote her to a sidekick role and you've lost half the reason fans cared in the first place.

B.B. Hensley, another example - In the game he’s basically a crooked cop and in the film he’s promoted to head villain, still a crooked cop but now he’s responsible for the distribution of VALKEER.

He’s played by Beau Bridges in the film, but, it’s a bit of a waste of his talent.

If that change wasn’t bad enough, he ends up robbing Max of some of his revenge.

One of the games main villains, Jack Lupino - Killed by Max in the game, killed by B.B. in the film.

I mean, how’s a man supposed to get some good old fashioned revenge?

Ludacris turns up as Lt. Jim Bravura, another character from the game - But - He might as well have not bothered really for the amount he’s in it.

Chris O’Donnell, Nelly Furtado are also in the film - BUT - Not as anyone from the games, and I don’t know why they just didn’t slap one of the many characters names they missed including on them and have done.

James McCaffrey, the games original voice of Max can be seen in a few scenes as well, he makes a cameo as an FBI Agent - You wouldn’t know it just by watching, but he is there.

Which is a nice little nod… I suppose.

I don’t know, it’s weird - Like I said, it should have been a no-brainer this one.

When the game was released it was the bullet time technique that made Max Payne stand out from the crowd, at the time it was new and had set the world on fire thanks to The Matrix.

It wasn't the first game to use the effect, that award would go to another game, Requiem: Avenging Angel, but Max Payne is the one most people remember as being the first.

They leaned hard into slow-motion shootouts, letting you dive through the air like you were Neo himself.

Yeah, it was a gimmick - But a cool one.

The film - Well, no not really.

There's an overly long slow motion scene at one point, but it's far from what people expected or wanted.

Which, I guess, brings us to our next point.

The game was a third person shooter – It takes a good hour before we see any action at all in the film.

I mean - C’mon - How or why is that a good thing?

The whole noir thing from the game was stripped right back as well, which is kind of offensive on some level - Well - To me anyways.

Now, don’t get me wrong - For all its faults you can’t say that the film isn’t a good looking film. Gorgeous even, especially if you're watching the Director's Cut.

But, it’s not right - It’s just - Like a polished up version of it all - The feel is gone, ya know?

So many odd choices when you sit back and compare the two.

None stranger than those literal Valkyries for me though - I’d played the games and I didn’t have any clue why they were there.

I imagine anyone watching the trailer went into this thinking there was some supernatural element to all of this - Which, well - Only led to disappointment along the way.

I’d love to know what anyone who hadn’t played the games made of them.

Critics tore it apart. Cheesy dialogue, confusing story, lifeless performances.

Fans weren’t much kinder.

It did scrape about $85 million worldwide on a $35m budget, so technically not a bomb — but it killed any chance of a sequel.

It actually opened at number one in the US.

And then word of mouth killed it stone dead in its tracks.

And, it serves them right. I mean - How do you take a game defined by its narration, its style and even its perfectly self-aware pulp, and strip all of that out?

What did they think was going to happen?

It’s like adapting Sin City but removing the black-and-white.

It's disappointing, on so many levels.

The games? Well, they still stand tall.

There were two more games. The second not long after the first.

The third a few years later when RockStar had a go at it.

They pushed the character forward, balding and bitter in Brazil.

Fans are still split, but most agree it had more Max Payne in one cutscene than the whole movie did.

I fall on the “loved it” side of the debate if you want to know - I thought it was great.

Remedy themselves have made a nice little niche for themselves with games like Alan Wake and Control, at the time of this video they've announced a remake of the first two Max Payne games but they haven't surfaced yet.

But the film?

One and done. It was supposed to have a sequel, it had an after credits sting that set this up - BUT - Because nobody watched the first one, they didn’t waste their time.

Which is probably for the best.

Max Payne deserved better, but now it’s remembered mostly as a cautionary tale.

It wasn’t the worst game adaptation ever made, but it was pretty close

And to me - Definitely was one of the ones that hurt the most.

It doesn't make sense, even after all these years.

The material was already strong, all Hollywood had to do was trust it.

They didn’t.

I'd recommend watching the Director's Cut over any other. The original release was stripped of its violence and at least this version gives it back.

They went in and tweaked other things as well, it generally looks and feels a lot better than the original release.

Ah well - That was Max Payne, one of the worst missed opportunities in the whole video game to movie world.

To be fair, and for what it’s worth - I don’t actually hate the movie.

Take away the fact of what it is and it’s a half passable film that will quite happily pass some time.

I’d like to think lessons were learned, but - Well. We know better, don’t we?

On the off chance you don’t know better, check out the other video game to movies I’ve already covered - There’ll be a link to the Playlist in the description and at the end of this video.

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Anyways,

I’ve been Paul and this has been Pixels, Popcorn.

Thanks for watching.