I don't like Mark. The only Mark I was able to enjoy was The Departed Mark. But I do like Max Payne. Big fan of the games. As much as I hate the terribly cheesy ways that slo-mo stuff is used these days, and how much it comes across as a desperate cry of "everyone in high school is gonna think this is SO dope", I still figured that I'd be able to handle it in this movie. I knew it'd be overused. And I knew that the "it's from the game, so that makes it Ok" excuse wouldn't fly with the vast majority of reviewers. Hell, I could even end up hating it myself. But I still imagine I'd be able to tolerate it just a bit more than the average viewer.

As far as Payne taking drugs being "irresponsible"... give me a break. I thought that part of the review was a joke at first. Again, I'll concede the point that I'll have to see it first before I can properly comment. But Max is forced to take the drug in the game. It's unclear whether he takes it willingly or not in the movie, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here. From the way the story of the game is set up, Payne will do whatever it takes to take these people down. Even if it destroys who he is. So the fact that he resorts to doing the bad thing and taking the irresponsible path all in the name of doing what it takes to accomplish his goal, well that seems very fitting of the character. Becoming just as empty and wreckless as those he pursues is a crucial character trait that I was hoping would be included in the film.

Now, maybe it's just done in a dumb way. Which I'm sure it is. And I'm sure when I see the way they pull it off, I'll probably just roll my eyes. So I can't defend the quality of that certain plot twist's presentation, but I can defend the logic behind it.

Oh, and someone please shoot BackwardGalaxy for actually having the braindead audacity to suggest that Resident Evil was anything more than a laughable, nonsensical abomination that could've had every proper name in the film changed and you'd never know it had anything to do with the source material. RE stands as one of the worst. Ever.

Oh, and SILENT HILL is the only good video game movie.

what does that mean? the same review as...his review? are you saying he didn't see it? what are you comparing it to?

"Approximately forty percent of the thing is spent talking about other movies or the reviewer's personal take on Mark Wahlberg's screen persona and not, for instance, specifying what made the sound editing so dodgy."

how do you describe in detail what is wrong with sound editing. if it feels, of, it just feels off. he even made a joke about how odd it is to even be mentioning it in a review.

"When a person presumes a position of critical authority and then deviates from the topic at hand because he's "struggling to find the energy to even write about it," he removes any potency and relevancy his review might have had."

if you're job is to write about a particular film, and the film is so shitty that it makes you not even want to do your job, that in and of itself is a good point to make. if a huge action film bores a movie reviewer so much that they are bored writing about it, that is important. come on now, you can see that sir, can't you?

"The job isn't "to be entertained whilst writing the review" and this particular writer receives no points for attempting to disguise laziness with disdain."

jesus christ, lighten up a bit. first, you're being a way too melodramatic there. second, when a reviewer sees a film that genuinely excites them, you can feel it in their review. it should be exciting to read a review by someone who was genuinely surprised or excited about a film. so why then, as the inverse, should we not hear if a reviewer is so bored by an action film that they can't even be bothered to write a really smash-bang review of it? boredom speaks as much to the negative as excitement to the positive.

"This isn't to say that Latauro is a bad reviewer--this is the only bit of his I've ever read--but this is a pretty shabby review."

a) then you don't come to AICN much. Latauro writes a lot, and is one of the best reviewers with the most consistent opinions. b) no it isn't

we all know it actually stands for "BadMrWonka"!!

Shame on you. For a start, it would seem that from what little you've written about the story that you didn't have the least bit of interest even before you started watching. From the trailer alone I could say that you could at least have mentioned, the Valkyries, burning skies, the washed out film stock colour choices and the post-modern noir style they chose to shoot it as. But no, insterad we get 3 paragraphs of 'I don't rate Mark Wahlberg', a block about excessive slow-motion and a retarded comment on the merits of drug use in films...

AND THE REST OF YOU, every toenail-brained twerp who posted a comment saying "wow, thanks I can't make decisions on my own, I'm glad you told me what to think Lat!, excuse me while I vote for Bush again (whattya mean I can't?)" You need help you people. Don't you make your own choices? Ever? I read reviews and then I see films to MAKE MY OWN MIND UP. Then again my parents weren't related.

I'm not saying the film will be good, god knows it looks about as fun as Stallone's Get Carter, But at least I'll wait till I've seen it or read a review that bothers to define the problems in the movie rather than just shitting on an actor's career for the majority of it.

Christ, I've been reading this site since fucking '99 and this is the crappest piece of copy I've ever looked at. No wonder Lat doesn't have a proper writing job.

Oh and for the record, I do, I've been a journalist and a critic for 5 years and I do know what the fuck I'm talking about.

Resident Evil Apocalypse - Utter vile crap

Resident Evil Extinction - Amusingly mediocre pap

Tomb Raider - mediocre Indiana Jones rip-off, watchable

Tomb Raider 2 - terrible crud

Super Mario bros - below average kids movie

Double Dragon - chop sockey b-movie crap

Streetfighter - Unwatchable rubbish

Mortal Kombat - Fun action daftness

Mortal Kombat 2 - shite

Silent Hill - Entertaining Horror, decent

Hitman - mediocre B-movie action, friday night brain-free stuff

DooM - see Hitman

Alone in the Dark - not even a movie as I understand the term. unwatchable

Postal - surprisingly entertaining sick comedy

In the Name of the King - below average fantasy epic, (still better than Eragon)

DOA - everything a 14 year old boy's libido wants from a film.

House of the Dead 1 & 2 - dire Zombie crap

Max Payne - dunno yet....

There you go, Sorry if I missed anything.

I would even watch that one again, and I can't say that about any other videogame adaptations.

Silent hill is the best adaptation and is still pretty shit.

Anyway, I think the point is that most video games are ripoffs of movies. So making movies based on video games results in an incestuous Mobious Strip of suck.

Look at Mortal Kombat. Why is Raiden a silly demi-god guy played by the highlander instead of the bad ass lighting thrower from the game? Because the bad ass lighting thrower from the game is a rip-off of the guy from Big Trouble in Little China.

I disagree with Ebert that video games aren't art, they are but most of them ar pretty bad art, so movies based on them tend to suck.

They say "This film is a live-action feature film based on the acclaimed japanese animation (anime) series." and it's slated for the 11th of December THIS year! WTF?!

I genuinely question whether the reviewer (and that's all he is because he doesn't actually critique the film) has even seen it. But seeing as so many of you can barely type comments as your hands are so full of his cock, I can only assume he has some vague credibility. Pity for him and writing as a whole.

I knew that people would bring up the Silent Hill thing. I wrote about this in the other TB regarding the Max Payne trailer's initial release. As a hardcore Silent Hill fan, I can appreciate the film for what it was. As a standalone film, it was mediocre- although "mediocre" actually makes it "better than 99% of other game-to-film adaptations". As far as being faithful to the source material, it had its moments. Visually it wasn't bad. But it wasn't near dark enough. Most of the games were played in areas with no dramatic background lighting or mysterious ambient light that lets you actually see everything in front of you. It was running through pitch black rooms with a tiny flashlight, and that's what made it so terrifying.

But obviously Hollywood isn't gonna go that route. They're not gonna show an audience a movie in pure darkness, because they have to show off all their fancy set designs and CG environments. And Pyramid Head should have never been in the film, it's just sad that the studio probably said "We need a villain, use the most famous one from the games, make it work". But all-in-all, it was a step in the right direction as a whole. I still don't like it though.

Good = 3 Kings and Departed.

The Bad = Italian Job and The Shooter

The Ugly = Planet of the Apes and The Happening.

Similar, no?

Hollywood has no fucking understanding of what made them successful and no respect for them.

Resident Evil is a classic example of Hollywood boneheadedness- The game is essentially a haunted house movie with a few knobs on. It's derivative, sure, but when has that ever mattered to the studios.

However, in their need to make it more of a film and their own property they basically gutted the game invented their own plot. And what a plot! Amnesia! the last resort of the fucking hack. The gutting was so bad that they invented a main character instead of going with either Chris or Jill. And don't get me started on her Superpowers. Basically, they gutted the mystery and suspense out of the game, replaced it with idiocy, crap characters and dreadful Nu Metal shite.

I honestly believe that in 20 years time they will treat them like Nolan et al treated comics this summer- if these games are still as popular. Until then, we'll keep getting the cinematic equivalent of 80's Captain America.

I will admit that Latauro's review is pretty non specific. Going on about Wahlberg, but what about the plot? What about the angels/demons?

Lets not forget Road To Perdition, Ghost World and History Of Violence were all based on "comic books".

I think a successful movie could be possible from the Grand Theft Auto franchise, it just needs a plot based in reality. Maybe get Shawn Ryan involved, now that The Shield is through.

And Arcadian, I'm afraid you're poorly mistaken. Most people complain about the cheesy dialog of the games. But I guess those people have never read a comic (which, if you bothered to notice, the entire game was meant to parody). I'm not a fan of the overly dramatic, cheesy comic book style of writing, don't get me wrong. But crying about it being exactly what it was meant to be doesn't exactly prove a point.

As far as the character goes, I'm not sure if you ever actually finished the games or what, but I always saw plenty of acting opportunity there. If you simplify it down to the "someone murders man's family who now has nothing to lose in pursuit of the killer" motif, then I can see how that would seem tired and empty. But from beginning to end, I saw quite a bit more to it than that within the many situations and moods of the 2 games. So for you to pretend as though he had "nothing to work with" apparently means you and I were playing completely different games. But I wouldn't blame Mark for not giving a damn if he was anything less than a diehard fan of the video games. Which I would have a very hard time believing. It just goes to show that these director's never really "get" the source material, because they could easily direct an actor to their full potential if they understood the structures of the original characters. But these directors just end up saying "Ok, stand over there in front of the green screen and shoot this way. We'll make it interesting later in post."

also, here is what you wrote that is confused:

"Latauro could not have even seen the movie and--aside from the sound editing beef--written the same review."

next time try, "He could have written the same review without having seen the movie."

you'd still be incorrect and not too bright, but at least it'd be clear.

ahhh... if only Marky Mark performed like in The Departed (or Four Brothers for that matter) in EVERY movie!

Wahlberg knows where his bread is buttered. He knows you have to make a few braindead abominations to balance the good films. A-Listers like Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Samuel L. Jackson, and Nicole Kidman have known this for years.