Max Payne

[Paper Carnival]

I just came back from the theater. Man, that movie sucked. They couldn't possibly ruin it any further. I'm not even a cranky viewer, I forgive movies too easily. But not this one.

[ManicMatt]

I could guess, but do tell me as to why it was a steaming turd so bad the flys were throwing up at the stench of it.

[InCreator]

Dammit. We all chanted doom upon this movie and what's sad is that it actually turned out to be true.

I still don't understand why. Why does game movies suck so bad? Is that a rule or something?

Well, for me it stunk the moment I heard "Wahlberg"...
I doubt I will go and see this movie. My heart was already broken when sword-wielding smiling kid tried to pose as 47.
Not gonna ruin my second favourite game because of incompetent directors.

[Paper Carnival]

Well, okay. What was good about it? They managed to capture the atmosphere of the game. But that's it. The plot was ridiculous and totally watered-down. You might be like, "whatever, I want to see ACTION!" Well, I'm afraid you'll still be disappointed. There wasn't much of it and whatever action WAS in the movie was short and stupid.

Picture this:

Spoiler

Max Payne breaks into Rag Na Rock to get to that Lupino guy. Somehow this looks like an abandoned office building for some reason. And he finds a stack of the Valkyr drug. Then two idiots come into the room, shoot around for no reason at all and begin searching for Max Payne. Max Payne then kills them. Then some guy comes from behind him, on a higher floor. Max Payne magically knows that and does a bullet-time back-jump and shoots the gunman with a shotgun.

[close]

There wasn't the elaboration on that Lupino lunatic like in the game. There was too little of that "I saw the flesh of fallen angels!" kind of bullshit that made the game feel so much better. Sure there was some of it, but it was like the movie tried to focus on the nastiness of the Valkyr drug and failed miserably.

Spoiler

That old bitch doesn't die and the movie stops when Max kills BB. Max Payne nearly died three times; All three times he dreamed of his wife, and in two of those she told him "not yet, Max". Can it get any worse than this?

[close]

It would be great if they just took the game as it was and made a movie out of it.

[blueskirt]

That's too bad. The source material had everything to be a great action flick: complex story told with style, great atmosphere with a bit of parallel story telling, non stop action and bullet time, something that come straight from cinema. If Hollywood couldn't make something great out of Max Payne, the problem of video games based movies might be the people who make those films rather than the source materials.

I genuinely had faith in the movie, but if they couldn't make something great out of that game, I don't think I will hold my breath for video games movies anymore.

[ildu]

I still don't understand why. Why does game movies suck so bad? Is that a rule or something?

A finnish reviewer said it the best: "This movie was made because the game franchise sold millions. It was not because it was a finnish game franchise, nor because the story was any good, nor because of the action gameplay. It was made because the producers knew it was going to make money, at least in the US, where for whatever reason there is a large market for the game movie genre."

If simply turning a buck is the goal, why make a game movie any good? Why waste money on a capable director, a passable script and good performances, when you know you're going to make more profit the less money you spend making the movie. In the case of game movies, the selling point is the game franchise, not the film itself. Just as long as you have a barely A-grade film, that will fulfill the requirements of a theatrical release (i.e. not a classic Ãœwe Boll game movie project), you're in the clear. The only reason you'd need a game movie to be remotely good would be in anticipation of a sequel. That I don't think will happen with Max Payne, unless to coincide with the release of Max Payne 3. Though, seeing as they're now making a Bioshock movie to coincide with the release of Bioshock 3, I hope things aren't as cynical as I see them .

In Finland, we're experiencing a somewhat unprecedented couple of weeks in our history of film. There are 3 theatrical releases coming out right now that relate to our country in a special way. Of course, the first one is Max Payne, which was after all initially created in Finland and starred by finns. The second one is Niko & The Way to the Stars, our first A-grade 3D animation feature film, which is being distributed widely in the rest of the world. The third one is Sauna, which is our first real horror film and which has received much acclaim around the world so far, including being premiered at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival.

Nevertheless, ruthless as ever (and rightly so), reviews have been bleak. The consensus of reviews put Max Payne and Niko both at about 2/5 stars, with Sauna coming up next week. Of the three, I've only personally seen Sauna, so I can't comment on the other two. Anywho, for someone who hates finnish films as much as hockey, I really liked Sauna. It was seriously like watching a real movie, with real actors and great production values.

Watch the first four minutes of Sauna here: http://www.iltasanomat.fi/viihde/uutinen.asp?id=1600614

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Part of it ties in to the arrogance of the screenwriter, who thinks he can one-up anything, be it in written or video game format.  This Hollywood arrogance is what often results in absolute disasters for film adaptations because they take so much creative license that there's almost no original content.  Resident Evil is a great example of a game series that could have been a great b-movie schlock series if adapted faithfully; instead, that degenerate hack Paul Anderson got a massive hardon for Milla Jovovich (who I can't stand) and restructured an entire narrative around her character.  Needless to say, with each sequel the original content was diminished by leaps and bounds (to make ample room for her skinny, grating screen presence) until the third movie just did away with it entirely.  This is the sort of thing that annoys most fans, honestly; it's not that there are differences, it's that there's no attempt whatsoever to be true in any way to the source material or to provide a similar experience.  This is why adaptations typically fail and will continue to do so until/unless they bring on screenwriters who are fans of the source to the point where they only tweak key elements to fit the story into a 90 minute run time or to eliminate confusing subplots that are not addressed in the first game.

[DoorKnobHandle]

So, they failed at making a movie from a video-game that actually had potential for a movie.

Let's see what they did to Far Cry...

[Ghost]

Let's see what they did to Far Cry...

Believe me, you don't want to know. Let's just say: The setting is changed to some woodlands full of moose, there are approximately 4 mutants in there, and the main character is now a German (called Jack Carver, Justification: "I can't do zer amerikan akzent.")

He doesn't even wear the shirt.

[InCreator]

This is still strange. Very few movies do hit the mark or atleast stay on the theme?

Tomb Raider, Silent Hill...

What's Max Payne? Drug, conspiracy, depressive protagonist, revenge, dead wife, Italian mob, gunfights.
Hollywood has done it like million times, how can they do it decently and so far and when GAME is involved, fail?

All they had to do was take one of those terrible movies by Steven Seagal or Chuck Norris, remove bone breaking, face kicks,  and replace main character with Max Payne instead of fat and sweating muscular man (with or without dirty red beard/ponytail) jumping onto people.

Awful. Why did Doom end with fistfight? Why did Hitman wield a sword?
It doesn't even make sense! It's feels more like intentional spit into fans' faces.

They can't make decent movies out of books neither. I really loved book "Day of the Jackal". Anyone seen the movie adaption (starring Bruce Willis)? How in the world could somebody make something better by replacing hardcore French president with a !black !FBI !director and witty French police detective with !russian !woman with !scar on her face?!
Bah.

Then again, USA  has over 700,000 Russian language speakers, and I've seen only 3 movies (out of hundreds) where spoken Russian actually sounds like one. Like there wasn't anyone who could go to a director and teach them to speak right. Another Hollywood mystery for me. Guess they're stubborn and that also applies to game movies.

Went offtopic here... or did I?

[LimpingFish]

Why did Hitman wield a sword?

Actually, the Hitman movie suffered from extensive re-shoots by a new director, including that terrible swordfight (which has some of the worst stunt-doubling in recent memory). The original sequence involves a single fight on the train platform (Hitman vs Evil Hitman) and makes better sense. A lot was cut, including footage more in tone with the games, and a lot of shite was substituted to fill in the gaps. The original footage supposedly makes for a more coherent story, with less shitty "action". Hitman was a movie I wanted to like, but the butcher-job by the studio makes it almost unwatchable. Aside from Olga Kurylenko's frequent nude scenes.

Huzzah for boobies!

Doom was utter cack, easily as bad as anything by...

...Uwe Boll? Is anybody really that surprised? I admire the man, on some twisted level. He makes no apologies, and sticks to his guns. His films may be dire, but it's not like he's tying people up and forcing them to watch. The fact that he manages to get "respected" actors to work for him is what's really amazing. (Sir!) Ben Kingsley manages to spend almost the entire running time of BloodRayne moving only his lips, while everybody else plays second banana to Kristanna Lokan's nipples. The fact that there is a petition calling for Boll's forced retirement is appalling. I can think of numerous Hollywood directors I would "retire" first; journeyman creative vacuums, who produce $50 million dollar+ duds every time they step behind a camera.

Regardless, take a look at the source material, before we act all surprised when one of these movies sucks. The Max Payne stories, though told in an enjoyably stylish way, are choc-a-bloc with genre cliches and one-dimensional characters. A cop whose family was killed? A sexy female assassin? Corrupt police? A mysterious drug? Doesn't Dolph Lundgren's career almost exclusively consist of movies that fit that storyline?

Does this mean that a Max Payne movie can't be good? Of course not, but that's not how Hollywood works, and studios really don't give a toss whether a movie stays true to it's source material. Xavier Gens, an admittedly young director with little or no track record, stated he set out to make a faithful Hitman movie (a scene cut by the studio features 47 assassinating a target by lethal injection while disguised as a doctor; something familiar to anyone who has played the games) with the game's same moral ambiguity and violence. That wasn't the movie the studio wanted to release, and that's not the movie we got. Would Hitman have been a better movie if Gens had been allowed make the movie he thought he was making? Who knows? But it may not have been so obviously terrible, something that is apparent with most movies that suffer such creative conflicts.

Christophe Gans more or less had free rein on Silent Hill, and it turned out fairly decent. Unfortunately, it was also fairly successful. The sequel, now exclusively in the hands of Sony Pictures, will not be directed by Gans or written by Roger Avary, or have the direct input from Konami and the game's creators that the original had, because more studio focus will be on it's budget plan and box office forecasts.

Par for the course.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Heh, we don't really need a petition, anyway.  The change in Germany's laws about movie investors getting all their money back if a movie is shit has effectively crippled him.  From now on he'll have to convince investors that the movie is going to sell, and they're tougher than any audience.

I haven't seen Silent Hill because I do my best to avoid videogame adaptations, but the trailer revealed glaring differences almost immediately, which is never a good sign.

Thinking about it, I can't come up with a single videogame to movie adaptation I've liked so far, be it the disastrous Super Mario Bros. or Hitman.  Comic superhero movies have fared slightly better in recent years, surprisingly, although I'm pretty much expecting the Punisher sequel to be total garbage without Thomas Jane, and I really don't see why anyone would want an Avengers movie.  There are just too many characters to give them all equal treatment as the X-Men films proved.

[jetxl]

...
I still don't understand why. Why does game movies suck so bad? Is that a rule or something?
...

The expectations of gamers are just too high.
I though Akira was a good movie, but then I read the manga and found out the movie is missing 2/3 of the story! They did some bold editing but it worked. If I was a fan and read the comic before the movie I'd be very dissapointed. And I will be when they make the american version starring Leo. I'm just too hard to please.

How interesting are in game stories anyway that they have to be adapted to the big screen? Isn't it the arogance of the gamers to think it is worthy of a movie?

Uwe Boll works hard and fast to get his crap movies rfinished. You have to respect that. I liked some parts of Postal, if only the jokes were funny and the actors gave a crap.


Best game to movie adaptation?
Street fighter 2 the animaton. Or is that cheating?
The wizard. Or is that cheating too?
Tron? The King of Kong. Oh I give up.

[Ozzie]

Expectations too high? I think it would be enough if a good movie would be the result of a game adaption. Apart from Silent Hill (I would recommend watching it, very enjoyable) I can't think of one. If it's true to the source material, that's another question.
Uwe Boll has neither managed to make a good film nor to stay true to the games.

[LimpingFish]

The thing about Akira is that Katsuhiro Otomo was both the comic's writer/artist and the films writer/director, so even though it was a different vision, it was still his artistic vision, which is why both versions work independently. The live action version (Neo-Manhattan? Bleh) doesn't seem like much.

A good game to movie adaption? Man, I'd have to agree with ProgZmax here and say that there has never really been one. I suppose Silent Hill.

The last one I saw was Onechanbara. To anybody familiar with the games, the movie manages to stay quite faithful. Zombies, swords, bikinis...how could they get it wrong? Plus it must have cost about half a buck to make! They didn't even spring for the cost of working prop guns, just added in some CGI muzzle flash and a sound effect during editing.

You have to admire that.

[Ionias]

... Milla Jovovich (who I can't stand) ...

Sir, you have gone too far, Milla Jovovich is a goddess on screen and can do no wrong. And yes, I realize that it’s because of eye candy consumers like me that turds like “Max Payne” are churned out by Hollywood. I’ve always been of the opinion if you wanted substance to read a book, movies should be visual, but I digress. Sorry to interrupt this thread with a mindless rant on how hot Milla Jovovich is… by all means continue…

PS. I think Mark Walberg is a good actor too. Egads, I think just realized I’m every thing that’s wrong with our modern cinematography.

[Misj']

Extremely off-topic!

I still don't understand why. Why does game movies suck so bad? Is that a rule or something?

Well, I haven't seen Max Payne so I can't comment on that...but I can comment on this question: the reason is, because gamers just don't get it.

First of all: the target audience for a movie and a game are different. Sure, Hollywood hopes to get the fans of the franchise, but in the end they are not the target audience. In most instances the demographic of the movie will be younger than that of the game. Sure, this is mostly a marketing decision made by suits who do not understand the franchise, but still. The same applied to Die Hard 4 by the way,  where Bruce Willis's character did not curse as much as in the original trilogy...only to make sure that they would get the much desired PG-13 rating (which doesn't really make sense, since you would expect that your target audience are the people who saw the original trilogy and would therefore be old enough...but no).

Another problem is, that many games - particularly the big buck games of the 90's - have a story that fits on the smallest size post-it. Let's face it: compared to the game, Street Fighter, Mortal Combat, and Doom (the latter of which I haven't seen by the way) all had great stories. Yes, it was still complete and utter crap, but when compared to the game...so they had to make something up. Something that still fitted within the original, but also to the (non-interactive) medium of cinema.

And then there are those games that do have a story (like the good adventure games, and most RPG's). Here we have the opposite problem. The amount of dialogue alone in for example Broken Sword was something like eight moviescripts...so you have to reduce it. Well, the first step is easy: get rid of some characters. If I were to write a game on Monkey Island, I probably would get rid of the voodoo lady. Why? - Because to me she never really fitted in the story at all...it was more like she had been put there because they had to have a voodoo something or another in there. But let's face it: if I were to do that each and every monkey-fan would put up a website to lynch me.

Once you've removed some of the characters, you go on to remove some of the story to make it fit. This is common for all adaptations. I personally thought Starship Troopers (the original) was a good movie, that was manipulating it's viewers into agreeing with fascism (the bugs were the (invaded) victims, but the movie continually made us think we were better then them, and that they were evil and we were heros). But if you read the original book...you will suddenly notice that they removed huge parts of the story and that the original was much better. Some will now say that this means the movie wasn't good at all. I say that you have to look at the movie in its own right. A movie isn't a book, a movie isn't a video game. (I still haven't figured out why people accepted these great deletions in Lord of the Rings, but can't accept is for almost anything else...it's probably because the fans of the original thought that a reduced movie was better than no movie at all).

Then there's the problem of interactivity: most games are extremely boring if you're only watching them. Now imagine watching that game on big screen in the cinemas...it's still equally boring. So things have to be adapted to convert the interactive original into a non-interactive reinterpretation. This generally means you have to invent the flow of the story that the original did not have to have because it was the player who created that flow himself: in a game wanting to beat the level boss is enough motivation to create a flow in the story...in a movie that just doesn't make sense.

As for actors...gamers seem to be the most annoying, most cliché casting directors ever. Fist of all they always want Angelina Jolie (and I really don't understand why), and secondly they always want to cast people to have done similar roles. As I said: I haven't seen Max Payne, so I can't say whether she did any good, but on the internet there were enough people complaining that Mila Kunis was to play an action character, because she was in that 70's show, and they had discussions on casting all the cliché women they could think of. I honestly believe, that it if gamers were to write movies we would only get the kind of crap like snakes on a plane.

In the end, gamers get disappointed, because they can't look at the movie in it's own right. If you look at Battlestar Galactica from the point of the original series, that it's worse than Street Fighter. If you look at it in it's own right, than it's actually quite some fun.





Ps. Any movie that has Arnold Rimmer carrying a shotgun is great.
Pps. And yes, I know: I am legend was completely different than the book and it didn't make sense that they shared the same name. But apart from that (and some plot holes), I was able to enjoy the movie. And I can be able to enjoy a game adaptation movie as well, even if it's not the same as the game.

[InCreator]

I'd say that this is one big missing-the-point here.

The expectations of gamers are just too high.

To "not miss" with a movie based on game, you have to stay on game character(s) and rules.
What is a game? A set of rules.
All games have rules. Movies have no right to replace or change the rules.
They are the basis of the game. Movie isn't a game, indeed, but if it doesn't reflect game rules, it's not about that particular game.

Nobody expects "Saving Private Ryan"-ish load of Oscars and star actors from game movie. Nobody expects same budget or profit. Or hype. Or level of epic-ness. Or whatever makes the most memorable movies.

What I - as a gamer - do EXPECT, is that movie is about game and not something else - if it is announced as a movie about game. That, as I stated, means staying true to game rules. Especially if there's absolutely no need to change them.

Expectations too high?

FFS, do not give Hitman a sword! By rules of the game, Hitman is a silent killer. He is not a pirate.
NO, sword will NOT make movie appeal to wider audience. It's stupid and pointless. If you skipped the sword, you might had guaranteed game fans' appeal. Now you have shitty, ruined movie with bad ratings. Even game fans turn away. You need blazing gunfights? Oh well. This game CAN be played like this. Fine. But for other parts, stay true to the silent killer theme. We have fuckloads of movies about silent killers. Much-much more silent. Why cannot do it again THIS particular time?

Was it really necessary to put static zombies (shoot me!) into Doom movie fps scene? Was it really hard for actors to pretend they're actually attacking the protagonist? Look, the CGI monster was able do it! It bite an charge protagonist! Why couldn't real dressed up actors? It's a movie about fighting monsters. Why didn't any of monsters fight, then? Isn't this fundamentally screwed up?

And standard action movie hero carries a truckload of weapons. Every Rambo and Terminator has a rocket launcher in his pocket. Why did Doom star only a shitty machine gun for most part? Isn't game about shotgun and rocket launcher? You had like $60,000,000 to spend. And you couldn't buy few weapon props. Even plastic toys... ?!

Is that too much to ask?
Is that too high to expect?
Does it have any ACTUAL reason to be wrong?

"Wider, not-game-fan audience" enjoys Rambo with rocket launcher and silent killers of various movies really well. So this overused "excuse" is pure bullshit.

Dammit, am I wrong?
And Mark Wahlberg is no Max Payne. Period.

[Misj']

To "not miss" with a movie based on game, you have to stay on game character(s) and rules.
What is a game? A set of rules.
All games have rules. Movies have no right to replace or change the rules.
They are the basis of the game. Movie isn't a game, indeed, but if it doesn't reflect game rules, it's not about that particular game.

But then you have to ask the question: what are the rules of the game, which are major rules, which are minor rules, and which cannot be applied in a movie.

FFS, do not give Hitman a sword! By rules of the game, Hitman is a silent killer. He is not a pirate.

It is true, the Hitman should work as an anonymous silent killer. This should be the basis of the character. And it is therefore a rule that should not be broken. On the other hand, you don't want your movie to be a series levels so that's a rule that can be broken. Also, there's no problem for the Hitman to be trained in sword-fighting, kung fu, chemistry, physics etc. as long as the major rule of the character is not broken. However, once the rule is broken during the movie (for example, once his anonymity is compromised) a new set of rules might temporarily apply. Simple example: there is no problem to the character if he has knifes, swords, and a great arsenal of guns in his home. Should the enemy break into this character's sanctuary, then there is no problem if - in the heat of the situation - he uses one of the swords, since the rule of him being the hunter (anonymous) rather than the hunted (known target) has been broken. However...after this epic battle which completely destroys his house and introduces the second act of the movie is over and he stands victorious, the original rules of the character should apply again: he's an anonymous silent hunter again (he just has to figure out whom he's hunting).

Is that too much to ask? - Is that too high to expect? -Does it have any ACTUAL reason to be wrong?

Yes...and no. I mean, I didn't care that Jim Barvura was black rather than an old white guy (and I didn't care that Ford Prefect was black either). I didn't consider that an important rule, since it didn't define the character (making Shaft a white guy would be evil though). I also don't care that the story is different (I'm talking about the details, not the overall story). On the other hand, if you change too much of the rules you end up with something that just isn't right. That's the reason why I consider Casino Royale the best Bond-clone ever (Living Daylights is another great Bond-clone), but also one of the worst Bonds. They broke too many of the rules. Bond (the bastard) just wasn't Bond (the gentleman), and there is no way he could ever become that character (even though people keep using that argument). I blame the writers, not the actor...but I won't be going to his next one.

Nobody expects "Saving Private Ryan"-ish load of Oscars and star actors from game movie. Nobody expects same budget or profit. Or hype. Or level of epic-ness. Or whatever makes the most memorable movies.

But why in the world not? - If the source material is good, than why not expect greatness...is the source material wasn't good, than why turn it into a movie at all?


Ps. Yes I know...it almost sounds like I'm contradicting my previous post

[jetxl]

Inc, you'll love River City Rumble.

But if it's all about integrety, lets reverse your question. Are there any good games that are true to the movie it's based on? (there has to be some since there are more games based on movies than movies based on games)

(and I didn't care that Ford Prefect was black either)

Me neighter. It did pissed me off that Samuel L. "Mother fuckin snakes!" Jackson played Nick Furry at the end of Iron Man. Better than David "Where's my burger" Haslehof, but still...