Change Your Image
edgecrusher02
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Happening (2008)
interesting idea, terribly executed
i have liked shyamalans movies so far, thought sixth sense was overrated and thought lady in the water wasn't as bad as people were making it out to be. just like with lady in the water, the happenings idea and story are good, but something is missing. in this case it feels like he came up with the idea for the story and then ran out of ideas when it came time to continue the movie past the initial reveal of whats happening. i know its not shyamalans style but instead of people killing themselves it would have been better if people were killing each other. instead we got people killing themselves and since everyone offed themselves now the survivors are running around from what appears to be... the wind. a large portion of this film was just people running from nothing really, they didn't now what they were running from for most of it and there wasn't an actual thing to chase them.
mark wahlbergs stab at more "dramatic" acting didn't turn out so well. his answer for dramatic acting was raising his eyebrows and or squinting or ending a lot of his sentences with an upward tone in his voice. he felt VERY out of place in this movie. i hate to say it but his place is in more action like roles where he doesn't have to be dramatic. either way im anxious to see what shyamalan comes up with next.
Max Payne (2008)
Was this really supposed to be Max Payne?
First let me start by saying I am a big fan of the game and I still remember it to this day. With that said, this movie was maybe 25% like the game, I'm probably being generous here. The first hour was a boring predictable detective movie. The character in this movie was not Max Payne in any way except by name. More than half the characters were left out and on top of that the only story they used was the fact that his family was killed and it had something to do with the drug Valkyr. Instead of Max being a cop with "nothing to lose" and on the run like the original story suggests, he is merely a suspect in his partners murder therefore getting rid of the suspense of the whole cop on the run thing. They left out how it was narrated which was pretty much the way this noir story should have been told. Also the cryptic theme song that set the tone of the game was discarded like it meant nothing. They used what one crazy guy in the game claimed he saw while on valkyr as the base for the whole movie, there were no demons/angels or whatever they were in the original story, they felt VERY out of place. Basically they replaced story and substance with cool special effects and a big name actor, obviously in this case not a good trade. You barely get a chance to know Max before it abruptly ends in an unsatisfying way. Mark Wahlberg admitted to not playing the game therefore he had no idea how the character he was playing was supposed to be, way to research the role Marky Mark. On top of getting a mediocre director who obviously had no idea what source material he was really dealing with, this movie was doomed from the start. I really hope this franchise goes the way of the last 2 hulk movies, a terrible one gets made and then someone steps up and makes it the way its supposed to be. So who's going to step up and save Max Payne? If you like and remember the game, DO NOT see this movie, you might be better off watching Bloodrayne again.