Max Payne
US 2008
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Beau Bridges, Olga Kurylenko
Director: John Moore

Journey to the Centre of the Earth
US 2007
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem
Director: Eric Brevig

IT HAS only been a few years but after 300 and the forthcoming The Spirit, I am already fed up with the Sin City look. This is defined as comic book noir, complete with de-saturated colours and slow motion action sequences. The newest film to bear the influence is the latest adaptation of a video game, Max Payne. A lousy pun of a title and an even lousier film, it offers nothing but its look and a perfunctorily generic plot.

Mark Wahlberg plays the titular city cop whom we first see disappearing beneath the surface of an icy river. He is done for, but that does not stop him narrating his journey to this point, which involves his work on cold cases (unsolved homicides) that in particular relate to the death of his wife and child. The plot involves performance- enhancing drugs, the military, eastern European gangs, a psychotic killer named Lupino (in homage to the 1940s star, Ida Lupino) and visions of valkyries. Nothing new except for the big flapping birds appearing at regular intervals to create a nightmarish vision of a metropolis.

Wahlberg, who was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting turn in The Departed and should know better, does his best to look tortured and determined in a film in which other aspects of humanity have been squeezed out. He needs a comic sidekick, but instead we have two Russian sisters (one played by Olga Kurylenko, currently to seen in Quantum of Solace) and Beau Bridges as a former cop called BB.

The film exists purely to appeal to players of the video game and, in America at least, pushes the boundaries of the PG-13 rating. Violence pervades the film and in this climate of gun crime should not be seen by anyone under 18. It is as without pleasure as its hero, another low for British director John Moore, whose credits include two nondescript remakes (The Flight of the Phoenix and The Omen) and the Owen Wilson action flick, Behind Enemy Lines.

Is 3D the future of cinema? The question was asked in the 1950s in response to the glut of three-dimensional movies produced to compete with television. The answer, then as now, is a two-dimensional “No”.

For starters, the technology does not work for those who wear glasses. I sat through Journey to the Centre of the Earth with 3D specs over my ordinary ones wondering when the effects were going to start. The lenses are more sophisticated than their ’50s counterparts (no more red eye, green eye), but the films are not. This one relies heavily on simulated theme park effects and a yo-yo in your lap (to reference one of the more redundant scenes) of its predecessors. Boiled down to 93 minutes, with only a slight dip in the middle, it is a succession of set-pieces that are illogical to their core.

It begins with tectonic analyst Dr Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) dreaming of his brother being chased by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. (Introduce a dinosaur in act one and you’ll see one again in act five.) He really ought to be thinking of the nephew (Josh Hutcherson) who he is looking after during the summer holidays. When Trevor’s research reveals volcanic activity in Iceland, he and the said nephew set off in search of the boy’s father, Max who went missing 10 years ago in search of volcanic tubes that, according to Jules Verne (author of the book on which this is based) would lead to the centre of the Earth.

On the way, they collect a mountain guide (Anita Briem) who happens to be the daughter of a scientist who, like Trevor’s brother, is a fellow Vernian. (Although I actually thought this was a member of the fan club of Verne Troyer – Mini-Me from the Austen Powers movies.) Together they survive lightning strikes, runaway mine cars and rock falls to reach an improbably conceived centre of the Earth, where volcanic magma is only now on the rise.

While the rest of the audience gasped and winced at the early effects (3D wears off after a while), I groaned as Trevor discovered his brother’s notes, perfectly preserved even though logically lava would have roasted them. They even find Max’s body. I couldn’t fault the film’s pace or its desire to thrill – Trevor fights off carnivorous plants and flying fish among other hazards. I just wish that this Journey really had a third dimension – originality.

Patrick Mulcahy