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Max Payne
20th Century Fox


5.4

based on 25 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 122 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for violence including intense shooting sequences, drug content, some sexuality and brief strong language

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, and Olga Kurylenko

Max Payne is a maverick cop - a mythic anti-hero - determined to track down those responsible for the brutal murders of his family and partner. Hell-bent on revenge, his obsessive investigation takes him on a nightmare journey into a dark underworld. As the mystery deepens, Max is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world and face an unthinkable betrayal. (20th Century Fox)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Crime \| Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Beau Thorne Sam Lake (video game by Remedy Entertainment and 3-D Realms Entertainment)
DIRECTED BY:	John Moore
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 20, 2009 Theatrical: October 17, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	99 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA
LANGUAGE(S):	Spanish \| English

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

A dumb film with a great conceptual hook from a director who visualizes better than he dramatizes.

TV Guide Cammila Albertson

For a movie of its type, Max Payne is a little short on excitement and heavy on pathos.

Film Threat Mark Bell

Simple, it is as by-the-books formulaic as can be, and there's not a surprise around that the corner that isn't obvious immediately.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Max Payne, game or movie, has precious little to say.

New York Post Kyle Smith

The attempts to out-Matrix "The Matrix," with bullet-time super-slo mo, are staged with such theatrics that they're unintentionally funny. This movie also has "Blade Runner" on its mind, and Raymond Chandler, but mostly it's a weak little sister to "Sin City."

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The film provides ample opportunity to attack the MPAA's hypocrisy. Max Payne is a bloodbath, yet it manages a PG-13 rating by keeping the explicitness of the killings just a whisker shy of what would be necessary for an R.

Time Richard Corliss

At least in a video game the player decides who needs to be killed, and what trail to take in the labyrinth. The Max Payne moviegoers are passive hostages on a long ride they've taken so many times before.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

In a post-Matrix, post-John Woo world, a handful of slow-motion shootouts shouldn't be all that's on offer.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Max’s righteous anger finds various allies and targets, though it is not always clear who is which. They are played by Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges and Ludacris with just enough panache and expressiveness to uphold the (increasingly irrelevant) distinction between a movie and a video game.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

A film that feels far too familiar for the likes of Wahlberg to juice up, hallucinatory valkyries or no.

Empire Staff (Not credited)

This tired, neutered action thriller won't cause you max pain, but you might wince every now and again.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The best way to sit through Max Payne is by using minimal brain.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

What kills Max Payne is that the characters think and feel in slow motion. Half the time, mentally, they're just running in place.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Max Payne couldn't be more appropriately named. Sitting through this stylish-looking but derivative, vacuous and bullet-riddled movie inflicts maximum pain.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

A banal revenge melodrama-cum-detective story, but fans of the video game on which it is based should not be alarmed.

Variety Justin Chang

Stylishly made, armed to the teeth and ludicrous in the extreme.

LA Weekly Jim Ridley

The role requires Wahlberg to run the gamut of emotions from A to A.

Washington Post Mike Mayo

This highly stylized adaptation of the popular Max Payne video game is 70 percent dark, snowy atmospherics and 30 percent loud, violent action.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

With its flat story, numbed-out protagonist, and faux artistic lighting and set design - everything is dark or moody or darkishly moody or moodily dark - Max Payne seems a good half hour longer than its running time.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

If you stay and watch the endless end credits, there's a short scene that hints a sequel is coming. That's what I call real pain.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

This is not a movie that has great passion for pleasures of the flesh. Its sexiest scenes involve bullets cutting through the air in the slowest motion possible.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Max Payne offers max pain along with min invention, and the only thing that keeps it out of the bottom of the Dumpster--it’s more of a top-of-the-Dumpster movie--is the presence of Mark Wahlberg.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It's just a grindingly inert death-wish thriller.

Los Angeles Times Sam Adams

Turning video games into movies may be one way for studios to coax teenagers away from their laptops, but this time around, the results are miserable, in every sense of the word.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The story has more holes than a shot-up metal door, the acting feels bored at best, and the intermittent action, while passable, hardly makes up for the downtime.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 122 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Decepticon Pom gave it a0:
I'm gay and would normally drool over both Wahlberg and O'Connell but this was so bad, I converted to Christ and preyed for a power cut. It didn't come. The existence of this film and failure for me to be delivered from its agony are proof there is no higher power!

Jared J gave it a10:
I fail to see why this got a 5.4 when the god awefull "Hitman" got a 9.8 (or 8.9) "Hitman" had no connection with the games. "Max Payne" has everything, even right down to the snow storm. It was nice to see the voice-actor of the first game play a role. I did not mind spending the $27.95 for the Unrated extended cut eddition and that came with a digital version, people these days love movies that suck and hate movies that are amazing (like this.)

John M gave it a7:
After reading the critics reviews I was a little wary of renting this movie but as a Sci-Fi Fan and an avid videogamer I did enjoy it. Yes, it was a bit slow starting but I found the last 45 minutes pretty interesting.

bob s. gave it a3:
Not good. Bad plot development, bad characters, just not worth more than $1.

Carlos V. gave it a10:
Extraordinary!! Max Payne is one of the best video game to screen adaption yet. I highly enjoyed this dark and gritty crime thriller, Mark Whalberg does an amazing job as Max Payne a cop haunted and tormented by his family's murder and he will stop at nothing to get revenge for their deaths, with that said Max Payne leads you on a roller coaster ride of thrills and non-stop action that all leads up to the shocking and explosive finale. John Moore directs a totally awesome crime thriller that won't stop amazing and shocking you till the end, Mark Wahlberg,Beau Bridges & Mila Kunis deliver great performances in this great Crime film. I very highly recommend this film.

Michael S. gave it a3:
Another failed adaption, any avid fan of the video game series will notice this adaption not only changes the story, but completely removes all elements of the game aside from names and slow mo. Mona Sax lived in a Fun House not a parking garage, the woman whoch was in charge of making Valkyr is the original 'bad guy' and nearly all elements of him hunting down crime bosses in an effort to figure out who killed his wife are wiped clean. This story should have been renamed, "New York Detective Searches for his wife." rather than the film noir gaming classic known as Max Payne.

A Movie Critic gave it a2:
One of the absolute worst movies I've ever seen. Couldn't have been any more disrespectful towards the game if the director had taken out a pistol and fired at the game disc during the end credits. Even setting that aside, though, the crappy movie they turned the game's brilliant storyline into is a dull police procedural with some occasionally cool visual imagery. The acting's horrible (though Ludacris does a good job, he deserves better) and not a single character seems to even remotely resemble their game counterparts. If they at least created interesting characters out of them it would have been OKAY but nope....It's really the worst of both worlds. If they wanted to nearly totally ignore the game (as they have) they could have AT LEAST gone the "dumb route" and gave us a dumb-but-fun action movie (Paul Anderson's Resident Evil films) but instead we get a story that takes itself deadly seriously yet that's so unbelievably boring that I could hardly sit through it. Awful.

Max Payne 20th Century Fox

Max Payne
20th Century Fox