'Payne'-ful

Always devoid of original ideas, the film industry has recently turned to video games in hopes of adapting popular titles to the silver screen.

However, if films like “Alone in the Dark,” “Postal” and the “Resident Evil” series are any indication, turning video games into movies isn’t working. The new Mark Wahlberg vehicle “Max Payne” might have the most legitimate star power of any video-game movie ever, but it fails to prove that video games make decent films.

The film follows DEA agent Max Payne (Wahlberg), a man who was 10 minutes too late to save the murder of his wife and child. The murder has yet to be solved, and Payne will not stop until he gets his vengeance. Payne joins up with an assassin (Mila Kunis), who is out to get a hold of those who murdered her sister, in attempt to solve a series of murders in New York City.

Unfortunately, Mark Wahlberg did not make his role believable at all. Max Payne is supposed to be a complete hard-ass who nobody wants to step in front of, but with Wahlberg playing him, Payne just seems like another, typical tough agent. We’ve all seen enough of Wahlberg in this type of role.

Really, the only exciting parts of the film happen when Mila Kunis was on screen. She doesn’t fit too well in an action, tough-girl role, but she looks damn good on camera.

When the film ends and the credits begin rolling, everything is still not explained. It’s clear Payne’s goal was to find the people who killed his loved ones, but there are many plot points leading up to the final showdown that are never explained properly. This half-finished puzzle ruins the entire experience.

Even armed with a big-name actor and a smoking-hot actress, “Max Payne” still fails to deliver anything remotely appealing. It’s yet another video-game-based bomb that offers nothing new to audiences and is devoid of a complete plot.