"D-" Rating by Robert W. Hammerle

To say that "Max Payne" is an unintelligent mess risks complimenting it. It is truly as tedious as it is boring, and you will be hard pressed to find a worse movie released this year.

Mark Wahlberg plays a police detective in a city where the sun never shines. Nearly every scene shot outdoors involves would be victims choosing to walk alone down abandon alleys while it is either raining or snowing. When your life is in danger, how stupid does a human being have to be to go to the one place where you can be killed where no one will hear your screams?

There literally is not an ounce of humor or pleasure in this film, and I can't remember a moment where someone was smiling except in an idiotic underground strip club scene where most of the people looked like mutants from the Ukraine.

Along with everyone else in this tedious train wreck, "Max Payne" even waste the talents of the incredibly alluring Olga Kurylenko, who was memorable in last year's "Hitman" and is likely to be the same in the upcoming Bond film.

However, I digress. Mark Wahlberg's beautiful wife and child have been murdered in a violent home burglary. Obsessed with the fact that one of the killers has never been found, Wahlberg descends into an obsession that is as depressingly bleak as the landscape of this film.

I can't accurately describe in any meaningful way what happens in this disaster, as I'm still not sure. As my Saudi Exchange student, "Z," said during the closing credits, "None of this made sense."

And no, it does not. Suffice it to say that Wahlberg's dead spouse's former employer was involved in some military experiments that cause permanent, violent hallucinations to its human participants. It seems its most pronounced side effect was to cause its human guinea pigs to scream quite loudly, something that most members of the audience will want to do long before this film mercifully ends.

To add to the complete absurdity are scenes of Wahlberg flipping backwards in slow motion, firing a shotgun accurately at would be assailants who continually miss him despite firing multiple machine guns. This film is so vapid and without any type of coherent content that maybe John McCain can choose director John Moore as his running mate if he chooses to run again for President in four years.

Regardless, if you want to see foolish but extraordinarily entertaining crime dramas that are satirical as well as witty, then go rent last year's "Shoot 'Em Up" and the aforementioned "Hitman." On the other hand, if you find yourself yearning for a way to add some tedious drudgery to your life in the guise of entertainment, then, and only then, could "Max Payne" be your cup of tea.