I've seen a lot of films in my life and generally I got a solid sense of what those movies were trying to do when I watched them. It's what I do for a living. But every once in a while I see something that is such a debacle, such an utter train wreck that I have to scratch my head and mutter, "What the hell were they thinking?" That's Max Payne. In a nutshell. A miserable mess, this film is simply all over the place. Another in a long line of failed video-game adaptations, Max Payne is the clichéd story of a bitter cop searching for the third of three murderers who broke into his home and killed his wife and baby.

Trouble is, the plot also involves a weird, wicked drug that makes people see dark, demonic angels that may or may not be the Valkyrie of ancient Norse mythology. And these demons, or angels or whatever they are, seem to be killing the fools dumb enough to keep taking this super addictive drug. And as Max (played by Mark Wahlberg) begins to unravel the paper-thin plot, he learns that it all ties back to his wife's work at a mysterious pharmaceutical company. And what begins as a stylish, slick-looking supernatural horror/action film slowly devolves into a run-of-the-mill actioner with the same, tired, retreaded plot we've seen a dozen times over.

And when all is said and done, there appears to be nothing supernatural at all going on. You see, the big kicker is that they spent an incredible amount of money to tell a story other people make for $2 million ... but with crazed mind-bending imagery that they want you to believe really exists for the first half of the film. But once you understand what the film is about, all the mystery vanishes and it turns into a very pretty but incredibly soulless retread of old material that doesn't add anything new but slow-motion shotgun blasts and digital blood puffs.

The best thing on the disc is a strange making-of documentary that eschews the common tropes of the standard DVD featurette and attempts to capture the essence of what it was like to make the movie rather than going into the specifics. And for a film that is pretending to be loftier than it is, it proves to be a very fitting and actually very interesting-to-watch documentary. There are some great tidbits, which are more about the actors and directors' processes than about the usual "this is how we did this, and look how cool that is," we're accustomed to.

There's also a weird prologue and a graphic-novel short film narrated by and starring Payne's wife, showing what led up to her death. Sadly, it is poorly put together and despite including many of the characters from the movie, not a one of them returned to lend their voice to the effort. Fairly uninteresting, this is something we're seeing more of on discs and some studios are putting less and less effort into getting it right.

I may not have a grasp on exactly what they were thinking when they made this, but I am certain of one thing. It's no good and only worth a look if you were a fan of the video game and want to see how they handled the same material.

Max Payne is available now from Fox Home Entertainment.

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