Max Payne: 0.5 star * lots of spoilers*

Plot: The wife and child of detective Max Payne are murdered. Payne kills two of the intruders and spends the next three years trying to the find the third. Drugs and his past are involved.

Sometimes there are films that everyone around you, professional critics and friends alike, just plain hates. For some reason, however, the film connects with you and no matter how many flaws you end up really enjoying it. In your eyes everyone is wrong. Some examples of that in my history are Powder and Constantine. That is why I decided to still give this film a chance. I was hoping that Max Payne would be another Constantine, but it turns that everyone else was right. Max Payne is bad, and not in a cool eighties way.

What can I say? I have a weak spot for dark movies that have a hint of any of the following: the dark side of religion, angels or demons or both, revenge, vampires and bad ass characters. Max Payne looked to have at least a few of those checkpoints. So I thought that while others found the movie horrible, I might be able to come out with something positive about it. That task turned out a lot more difficult than I thought. There is a basic recipe to film. It consists of one part directing, one part writing, one part acting, one part editing, and in these modern days we have to add special effects as well. I know that there more elements and hands in the pot than that, but if everyone contributing gets these basic parts of the recipe right, and follows the directions correctly, you'll come out with something at least enjoyable if not great. Hell, even if you get just two parts of the recipe right you still might get a film that I love. Max Payne gets none of these things right. If you decide to still check this one out, writing in vague detail won't ruin anything. If you've seen a few movies in your life you'll know exactly what is going to happen within fifteen minutes, so please indulge me while I convey a few frustrating facts about Max Payne:

1. The villain, in an excruciating fashion, spells out everything he has done before actually killing Max Payne. I know this is a usual super hero film device, but this isn't one of those films (no matter how much the filmmakers wanted it to be). Two things make this even more painful. First is that the viewer has already figured out everything he's saying in the evil monologue, so we just want him to shut up. Then, after Max escapes his clutches and returns in the end to finish everything off, the villain actually says (and the writers actually wrote), "Do you want my confession first?" Really? Did you forget what you wrote two scenes prior? He already confessed. Maybe the writer meant a legal confession that Max could use to clear his name, but that would nullify all of the effort painting him as a man who simply doesn't care, and the villain knows he doesn't care.

2. Mila Kunis' character, Mona Sax, is introduced with no explanation as to why she is there and what she does other than protecting her sister Natasha who somehow has a connection to the death of Payne's family. When Mona's sister dies after a run in with Payne, Sax and Payne realize they're after the same man. Teaming up for the first time and hot on his trail, Sax says, "You know what I do Max. Try anything and I'll kill you." No, we don't know what you do. As far as we can tell you have a machine gun, you're russian, and you have three intimidating guys with you. IMDB informs me she is an assassin. I seriously had no idea. Hopefully I missed something.

3. The "mysterious" story surrounding the death of Payne's family is based around the pharmaceutical company his wife worked for. They manufactured a drug to make soldiers more aggressive, but it went bad, and they had to cover it up. That in itself is infuriating. I think i've heard that plot line on about four different occasions. It's simple, it's boring, and people need to stop using it. Unless, of course, you can think of a more clever way to incorporate it in your film.

4. Payne has been searching for the third killer for three years. Not one month, or one year, but three whole years. Somehow in those three years (he's a detective remember) he missed the fact that a band of druggies were roaming the streets all with the same tattoo, that one of the killers had this tattoo on his arm, and that all of that is connected when he first meets Natasha and she has the same tattoo. All he can muster up is, "That tattoo is interesting." Oooooooooo foreshadowing. I guess the writer wanted some really awesome foreshadowing rather than logic in his script. Oh yeah, that tattoo is also eerily similar to the logo of the pharmaceutical company his wife worked for. Payne must have been a horrible detective, or he literally has gone blind with rage.

5. So, this drug that everyone is taking, we find out later that it has two possible effects. Apparently 1% of the test subjects experienced the wanted effect, however the effect was so extreme it made them mad with power. The other 99% experience extreme addiction, hallucinations containing valkyries from Norse mythology (the name of the drug is also Valkyr) and then eventually die mysteriously from these hallucinations. At one point near the climax Payne is forced to take two hits of the drug to survive. After only two doses, he somehow experiences both of these effects. Not only does he become unstoppable, he has some of the most grandiose hallucinations of all. Keep in mind there are people walking all around taking these drugs on a consistent basis. They were all somewhat functional. I had the impression you had to be a junky to experience these hallucinations. I guess he's special because his family died.

Frustrated yet? I was enough to write this much. I could have kept going, but I don't have the time. The most disappointing thing of all is that the story of Max Payne the man, the Norse mythology, and even Mona Sax could all be parts of a really great and entertaining film. The recipe was just way off in this case. Mark Wahlberg was phoning it in, the special effects were weak, as noted above the script was horrible, and the directing and editing were no fun either. There were a few scenes with some great visuals, and that is why I gave the film half of a star. I honestly wouldn't be all that disappointed if someone tried again in the future minus the pharmaceutical company hogwash because, like I said, I have a sweet spot for this kind of stuff.