Max Payne (2008)

Mark Wahlberg glooms about the land in the latest computer-game makeover, a noir action thriller of such scowling, benighted violence that it could send manic depressives over the edge and make newcomers to that condition of us all.

If you can follow the plotlines of this swingeing approximation of the well-known video game of the same name, you are a better customer for John Moore’s spectacular thriller than I was.

Badly written, poorly acted and surprisingly dull action thriller that substitutes loud gunfire for thrills and doesn't bother to develop the characters beyond their video game origins.

Loud and completely devoid of wit or interest, this empty-headed action movie looks terrific thanks to its big budget and heavily stylised visuals. But it's impossible to care about anything that happens.

Mark Wahlberg shifts the dank micro-climate that is his charisma to Max Payne, a "neo noir" action thriller which means it snows a lot in murky New York.

The willfully absurd action sequences help the movie slog along, but slog it does, right through to the obligatory after-credits scene to establish the possibility of a franchise.

Based on a Finnish shoot-em up video game, Max Payne is all style and little story, cheerless detective Max (Mark Wahlberg) drifting through a washed out and snowy New York in search of his wife's killer.