Max Payne Lives Up to Its Name

Max Payne, a sci-fi shooter video game-turned-movie, is “undiluted junk,” writes Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News. “No amount of generosity could excuse the levels of ineptitude on display here,” she says of the Mark Wahlberg vehicle. “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.”

“Woe to the moviegoer who shows up” to the film, writes Sam Adams of the LA Times. As for its visuals, the film “is so dark it looks as if the negative were dropped in a puddle of ink.” Writing in the New York Times, AO Scott offers some perspective: “It’s not an especially good movie, but such a judgment is not really relevant to its ambitions.”
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