Max Payne Tagged Articles at Cinematical

City of Ember
This is the film that our Jette Kernion said is "one of the most gorgeous-looking films I've seen this year" (2008). It's the tale of a city in darkness -- a community that houses the likes of Saoirse Ronan, Tim Robbins, and Martin Landau, and is led by none other than Bill Murray. If thoughts of the future and rousing family fare are your cup of tea: Buy It on DVD. Sadly, there's no Blu-ray at this time.

Repo! The Genetic Opera
Unfortunately, this rock opera didn't live up to some expectations. But nevertheless, we're talking about a flick that had the cojones to cast Paris Hilton, and gave many rabid Buffy fans the opportunity to see Anthony Head belt out lyrics once again. Rent it, on DVD or Blu-ray, if you can handle a little blood and rock beats.

Max Payne
It came, it screened, it died. Max Payne was the action movie without action, the video game adaptation with serious plot changes. Perhaps in the right hands this still could have meant something amazing, but as it is, Payne fizzled. Skip it on DVD and Blu-ray. Elisabeth Rappe has a review of the DVD right here.

The top two films at the box office this weekend couldn't be more different -- which might help explain why both had such strong starts. The third film in the Disney Channel's wholesome, wildly popular High School Musical franchise, and the first to hit theaters, had a $42 million debut, and will go on to be at least as wildly profitable as its predecessors. $30.5 million for Saw V is basically in line with its three immediate predecessors, all of which had first weekends between $31 and $33 million. The films' final grosses have been steadily declining since the second film, however, with the most recent entry dropping like a rock and managing only $63 million total. We'll see if that trend continues. I'd say, though, that this debut guarantees a sixth Saw for next Halloween. As Eric wrote yesterday, it is now the most lucrative horror franchise in film history.

The only other new wide release this weekend was Pride & Glory, which New Line more or less dumped. It did a predictably weak $6.3 million, good enough for fifth place.

Oliver Stone's W. took a big hit, as the people who needed to see it apparently saw it last weekend. It dropped nearly 50%, with a $25-28 million finish looking likely. Max Payne held up even worse after last week's strong debut. Meanwhile, two films from the early fall doldrums continue to emerge as success stories: Eagle Eye and Beverly Hills Chihuahua are both still hanging around, and both looking to reach $100 million before all is said and done.

In 20th place, Clint Eastwood's Changeling made a strong limited bow: half a million on fifteen screens, for $33,000 per screen. It goes wide next week. A bit further down, the annual rerelease of Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D couldn't do much business, ending up with $372,000 on almost 300 screens.

The full estimates after the jump.

Well, what do you know: I was right, sort of! Oliver Stone's W. didn't remotely flop. Its $10.6 million opening weekend on just over 2,000 screens is very respectable for a political, current-events-themed drama. In case you're just joining us, those have not been doing well. W. was a couple million away from matching the first weekend gross of the Scott-DiCaprio-Crowe offering Body of Lies (which fell to sixth place this week). Of course, conservative blogs are already spinning its (completely unsurprising) slip from second place on Friday to fourth for the weekend as some sort of referendum on Oliver Stone's politics. Fat chance.

There were other winners this weekend. $18 million is a good number for an inexpensive actioner like Max Payne, though if you think it underperformed a bit you're probably right. $11.1 million in semi-wide release for The Secret Life of Bees is gold. Beverly Hills Chihuahua continues to do well, approaching $70 million. Even Eagle Eye is still kicking down in fifth place; it'll just miss the $100 million mark.

The weekend's only flop was such a foregone conclusion it can hardly be called a flop. Summit's Sex Drive opened to 9th place with $3.6 million. With no stars and no real marketing hook (choosing a picture of the protagonist in a donut suit as the film's main piece of branding probably wasn't the best thing), it could have been worse, and the thing will break even eventually.

The full estimates after the jump.

For a movie based on a video game, there's a curious dearth of action in Max Payne. I know we've often complained that these movies were ALL action and NO substance, but this one has gone in the opposite direction. Well, except there's not really any substance, either. So it went in the opposite direction, but only part of the way. It stopped in the middle and is now a one-dimensional detective noir rather than an exciting shoot-em-up.

By the way, I have never played the Max Payne video game. Does this disqualify me from reviewing the movie? Then stop reading now! Cuz I'm totally about to review the hell out of it anyway.

Mark Wahlberg takes a break from his talking-to-animals duties to play the title character, a New York City police detective whose wife and baby were murdered three years ago by three assailants, one of whom escaped and was never identified. (The other two are dead and thus unhelpful.) Max now works in the cold case bureau of the department, basically pushing papers around all day so he can focus his efforts on his real objective: finding the guy who killed his family.

Following a lead, he winds up in the company of a sultry Russian named, like all sultry Russians, Natasha (Olga Kurylenko), whose sister, Mona (Mila Kunis), is a villain of some kind. (Assassin? Gangster? At one point Mona reminds Max, "You know what I do for a living," and I thought, "Well, that makes one of us.") Natasha winds up dead with Max's wallet nearby, making him a suspect. The subsequent death of a police officer in Max's apartment makes things look even worse.

While there's more than enough new content for everyone this weekend, we're going to focus on the three more talked-about films, and try to get a sense of which flicks will cause you to open the wallet. Surprisingly, if you're down for a raunchy teen sex comedy, Summit's Sex Drive might just be your best bet come Friday night. Oh yes, I bet you didn't see that coming. Buzz on both Max Payne and W. has been lukewarm, with a lot of Twitter hate being thrown at the former. Previewing Eric D. Snider's upcoming review of Max Payne for Cinematical, he unfortunately has this to say: "I know we've often complained that these movies were ALL action and NO substance, but this one has gone in the opposite direction. Well, except there's not really any substance, either."

Our own James Rocchi was a bit indifferent with his excellent upcoming W. review for Cinematical, noting: "If distance grants perspective, though, you could also argue that proximity grants immediacy, and argue that Stone's W. is not meant as a somber, serious look back but rather a cautious, nervy attempt to peer into the recent past, a film with, in the words another Presidential candidate recently borrowed, 'the fierce urgency of now.'"

But perhaps neither of these films do it for you. If that's the case, might I suggest a little indie currently airing on Starz called The Big Bad Swim. It's a darling of a film, and it's available through Starz On Demand through October 30th. Quiet, quirky and kinda fun. Check it out. (Paid for by Guys Who Really Dig Jess Weixler)

Those furry little buggers took us by surprise and Beverly Hills Chihuahua hung on to the number one spot for two consecutive weeks. Body of Lies surprised too, taking third place despite formidable star power before and behind the camera. Here's the top five:

1. Beverly Hills Chihuahua: $17.5 million
2. Quarantine: $14.2 million
3. Body of Lies: $12.8 million
4. Eagle Eye: $10.9 million
5. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: $6.4 million

Four more new ones this week starting with:

Max Payne
What's It All About: In this video game adaptation, Mark Wahlberg plays a widowed cop with an attitude investigating a series of killings.
Why It Might Do Well: Director John Moore has obviously seen Sin City, so maybe some of Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez's dark and gritty neo noir cool will rub off. Based just on the number of theaters I'm betting this takes the number one spot.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Despite having enjoyed Resident Evil, I still cringe at the idea of a movie based on a video game.
Number of Theaters: 3,200
Prediction: $24 million

As is often the case with the translation of any geek property to the screen, this Friday's release of Max Payne seems to elicit just as many hopes and doubts as one would expect from a big-screen adaptation of a popular video game (well, one not directed by Uwe Boll, that is). So, coming from a position of relative ignorance when it comes to most titles (trust me, my PS2 gathers more dust than yours does), what's the current reading from fans on a film proudly rated PG-13, although based on a series of M-rated games?

And for which upcoming projects are you most hopeful: Halo -- that is, with or without Peter Jackson? Gore Verbinski's BioShock? Jerry Bruckheimer's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time? (And just when is The Rock's Spy Hunter coming out anyway? Do you care?) (Should I?)

As for my fellow ignorati: does this look to you like an appealing action movie regardless? Which video-game movies worked best despite your lack of familiarity with the source material? My vote goes to the first Resident Evil, with some moderate supporting love going to Silent Hill and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within -- no great blasphemy intended.

Oh, and just to keep things jumping, any thoughts on the following titles, or any left out, are more than welcome: DOA: Dead or Alive, Doom, Double Dragon, Hitman, the Mortal Kombat films, Street Fighter, Super Mario Brothers, the Tomb Raider franchise, Wing Commander.

Talk about picking your battles: John Moore, director of the upcoming thriller Max Payne, has openly lashed out at the MPAA for granting the film a full-blown R rating instead of an hoped-for PG-13, explicitly calling out the ratings board for granting leniency towards The Dark Knight. His NSFW thoughts on the matter were brought to light during an interview with Das Gamer; I'd recommend that you head over there and give it a look-see.

Now, most filmmakers shoot for the more profitable PG-13 due to contractual obligation, and while I don't doubt that's part of the drive here -- as a studio, Fox has shown no scruples about trimming out the naughtier bits of last month's Babylon A.D. and last summer's Live Free or Die Hard -- Moore has been quite openly set on earning one. Who knows, maybe the man is actually out to prove the difference between lots of action and lots of violence, or perhaps it's just semantics as he shuffles back to the cutting room.

Moore made the PG-13 action flick Behind Enemy Lines for Fox, but also the R-rated horror remake The Omen, and judging from this most recent trailer, this seems to be a fair cross between the two in terms of genre intensity (guns and demons -- what kid wouldn't sneak in if they had to?). We'll just say how rough and tough Max Payne really turns out to be come October 17th.

[And a tip of the hat to /Film.]

I must admit that, after watching this new trailer on Yahoo! Movies for upcoming actioner Max Payne, I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it, but I'm willing to predict this much: it won't be boring.

Having not played the games, I can't speak for much faithfulness beyond the incorporation of slo-mo, but beyond that, this strikes me as some sort of cross between The Punisher (as Mark Wahlberg's eponymous NYC cop has lost his family to criminals) and Constantine (seriously, what's with the angelic demons here?).

That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you -- for a video game adaptation, this thing looks pretty slick and atmospheric so far -- but how will this flick play out under an assured PG-13 rating? Doesn't that somewhat defeat the purpose of anything titled 'Max Payne' (or anything starring Mila Kunis for that matter)?

Regardless, Max-ish Payne opens on October 17th, opposite the teen-targeting (but R-rated) romp Sex Drive and Oliver Stone's controversy-magnet-in-waiting, W.