Max Payne movie tops US box office
Grosses $18 million on first weekend despite mauling from critics
20th Century Fox's Max Payne move, starring Mark Wahlberg and based on the Rockstar franchise, has topped the US box office on its first weekend of release.
The title grossed USD 18 million according to a report on Reuters, despite being panned by film critics.
"Turning videogames into movies may be one way for studios to coax teenagers away from their laptops, but this time around, the results are miserable, in every sense of the word," wrote the Los Angeles Times.
"When a movie is based on a video game that is itself based on genre movies... you're not too surprised at such a mess," commented Kirk Honeycutt in The Hollywood Reporter. "The film looks to have boxoffice potential with under-25 males, especially video gamers - that is, if gamers are willing to sit back and let a game, or rather a movie, play all by itself."
Variety was one of the few publications to praise the movie as "a reasonably convincing and atmospheric simulacrum of the game’s interactive environment," but conceded that "it’s not nearly as much fun as actually playing the game."