Max Payne (*)

MAX PAYNE

A boring, humorless, boring, pointless, boring slog, Max Payne is based on the video game except unlike the video game, which featured constant slow-mo shoot-em-ups, there's virtually no action in the first hour. The movie is a plodding, convoluted mystery about who murdered Max Payne's family that somehow involves Russian gangsters and supernatural valkyries butchering people in wintry New York. The cast includes Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko playing the same slinky sexpot she played in Hitman but without the nudity, Chris O'Donnell, Beau Bridges, and Ludacris, who sports the highly unlikely name Lt. Bravura. Lt. Bravura is so proud of his name, his desk has a giant nameplate and his door has "Lt. Bravura" emblazoned on it in the biggest font possible. Marlo from The Wire even appears playing the same character Djimon Honshou played in Constantine. As leather coat-clad badass Max Payne, Mark Wahlberg is joined by Mila Kunis as... it's never clear what or who her glum, leather-clad badass character is supposed to be. In all their scenes together Wahlberg and Kunis seem to be in a private competition to out-scowl each other. The whole time, you're just waiting for Wahlberg to drop, "Say hi to your mother for me!"