Mark Wahberg, Mila Kunis, Ludacris, and Director John Moore (The Omen, Behind Enemy Lines) were in attendance to premiere Max Payne footage at the Fox panel at Comic Con.

During the Panel, John Moore kept repeating how important it was for him to stay as subjective to Max Payne’s character as possible. He believed once you take away the controller from the player, you better make it as personal to the audience as you can. Moore’s reasoning is that when you play the game the whole reason to play it is to feel like you’re a part of the story.

If you’re a fan of the game, you would be excited of what we had the privilege to witness. For instance, one scene involved Max Payne following some “junkies” into a subway system. As he passed them, they were sitting on a bench, he took a right into the bathroom. The next thing we saw was Payne looking into the mirror, he noticed the reflection behind him were the junkies. A shootout soon took place inside the bathroom, if anyone has played just the beginning of the game, the set were this taking place will seem very familiar.

Some other perks from the game, has Max Pax Payne narrating how he feels, using very dark metaphorical dialogue, but making it as simple sounding as it can, giving the feeling like you’re listing to someone read a comic book.

The last thing we were shown was a 3 minute highlight reel of the movie. It started with a zoomed shot of a barrel of a handgun, then with the same single shot started zooming back, until you saw Mark Walhberg standing holding the gun in in a alleyway while it was snowing. It went on with Led Zeppelin’s “Candy Store Rock” blasting in the background and seeing quick clips of various gun fights and showing different characters Max Payne will encounter, including dream sequence that are involved with the game. It ended with with a scene showing Max Payne holding a hostage in a office with an swat team of about ten, holding guns pointing to Payne. He throws the hostage to the ground and a fire fight ensues. Payne on one side of the room, the swat team on the other. Max Payne then tries to sneak to the other side of the room, ducking and dodging bullets by using the office desks as cover. At one point the emergency sprinklers go off, giving the firefight a little beauty to the scene.

At the end of the firefight, we see Max Payne dive, while shooting at a door to unlock it. The clip then slows down, using a bullet time effect much like what the game does. John Moore briefly discussed how they achieved bullet time. by  Using a hard drive called Phantom. Phantom is a machine that can record video at 1000 Frames per second, which gives the effect of slowing down time time to the thousandth degree. The effect gives a smooth rendition of what the game does so well.

All in all, the movie has beautiful cinematic shots but the question remains, will the story be worth watching? Again, they seemed to keep the simple dialogue from the game, I’m not sure how well that will translate for a full movie.

  • Jmoney
    the PG-13 rating is worrying me
  • Dylan
    Looks like it will stay true to the game. Hopefully its a good movie though ;)
  • Hastings
    I'm just wondering, do us readers of /Film ever get to see the footage you're seeing? Like, do the companies throw it up on the internet after releasing the footage there at comic con?

    I want to see all of these clips/trailers/everything you're all writing about :(
  • Tyler J
    Good, hopefully marky mark can redeem himself for whatever rep he lost in The Happening.

    God that movie was awful.
  • Captain Awesome
    Tyler J,

    Don't forget:

    Planet of the Apes
    We Own The Night
    Four Brothers
    Rock Star

    The Happening is icing on the cake.
  • Logan
    Yeah, if it stays true to the game, I am definitely going to be seeing this. And yeah, the PG-13 does worry me a little. Extreme gun battles, gallons of blood, Molotov Cocktails, trippy dream sequences, bullet time, and a darker setting than Gotham and Sin City put together, this is going to be awesome. Also, 1000 fps is going to be insane.
  • Matt
    Sounds good besides the PG-13.
  • YoungZe
    Why is everyone worried about PG-13? God damn, Max Payne was never about violence!
  • yh
    YoungZe:
    Umm... Max Payne was bloody and indiscriminately violent, hardly PG-13 material. I want more Wanted violence and less Live Free and Die Hard.
  • Matt
    What yh said.
  • Goobity
    Can 1000 frames per second be sped up to the point that I can not think the movie looks like a waste of time? It would have to be shorter than the trailer...
  • Ricky
    sounds fun
  • SpOoky777
    YoungZe is dead on...it was definitely not very graphic...sure, MP had it´s violent and "bloody" moments but in a more subtle way...
  • Logan
    @SpOoky777

    Yeah, toting around a shot gun, jumping through walls, and blasting fools while in bullet time is definitely subtle. I just love turing away when I torch some idiot with a molotov cocktail so I dont see what actually happens to him. If this movie isn't rated R, we can only see our expectations of this film only go so high.
  • Anders
    Jon, that wasn't "Candy Store Rock." It was "Whole Lotta Love" that was played during the three minute clip.
  • Raerth
    Oooh, shiny new blogger!
  • HiFidelity
    Uhm .. *geek-mode* it's not an "hard drive called Phantom". It's the camera which is called Phantom HD from VisionResearch. It is able to record up to 1000 fps on a hard disk at full hd resolution and even higher frame rates on a lower resolution (up to 1500fps).
  • I, really think, this guy, should learn, to use punctuation, a little more, sparingly, when its, not needed.

    Also, proofreading helps ;)

    "the set were this taking place"

    I had to read that three times before it sunk in that a sentence like that made it to the front page of slashfilm.
blog comments powered by Disqus