I'll start by saying that people who haven't played Max Payne games might like the movie (though it's not likely). But compared to the game the movie is just BAD. First of all the movie twists the awesome plot of the (first) game, so it really feels like it just "borrowed" ideas from the movie.. I understand that you can't translate all 15+ hours of gameplay into 2 hours of movie scene-by-scene... But it feels like someone took the great plot of the game, broke it down to fragments, and then stuck them together in a much, much, much worse way.
Second, some key elements that made the game so good are missing. Mainly, the narration by Max. It gave that noir note to the game's plot, but in the movie it's just missing. And it's not like there isn't any room for it - there's plenty of that, but nothing... Another key element is Bullet Time. There are numerous missed oportuneties to use it, and the scenes it is utilized in are extremely lame. Max's signature dual Berettas also fail to make an appearence. Not cool. Third, the movie just sucks, regardless of the game. I mean seriously, you watch it, and in places you just think "Wow, that was lame". For example I seriously doubt that someone would drink a vial of hallucinogenic drug to get warm after falling into a frozen river... Plus the acting in the movie won't blow you away.
With that said, there are good moments in the movie. I really like how all that seemingly-supernatural stuff was worked into the movie (once again, regardless of the game).
So all-in-all, Max Payne is a half-decent movie, made even worse by the fact that it gives absolutely no justice to the epic game it's based upon.
