Payneful Movie News

Good News & Bad News... The good news is that the video game Max Payne is going to be made into a movie. The bad news is that it's going to "star" Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne. Totally wrong casting here. I liked the Max Payne game - it's a fun shooter that introduced 'bullet time' (think Matrix). Unfortunately, I hit a brick wall spot in the game that I couldn't get past and moved on to other things and haven't played the game in a long time. However, I do remember being impressed with the dark noir overtones, the gritty voice overs (in true noir fashion) and the cut scenes and comic book like narration scenes. The plot is generic - good cop loses family and goes on rampage. Basically a Punisher rip off, but the style and noir and mystery elements made it much more interesting. A good script that played the noir angle with shooting action (not the other way around - make this a movie, not a video game movie) and the right actor could make this into something to watch. However, I just can't possibly see Wahlberg as that kind of a dark and gritty, oneliners and voice over, noir anti hero. It's late, so off the top of my head, I can't really think of anyone who should have been cast instead, but I'm sure I'll think of somebody when I'm watching this on DVD sometime in the future...