Back when Mark Wahlberg was Marky Mark, “Street Fighter” and “Sonic the Hedgehog” are what made the party start. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, video games didn’t have multi-platform levels, elaborate cinematic story-lines, bullet-time slow motion, or human-like artificial intelligence. Hell, video games didn’t even have a third dimension. Maybe that’s why Wahlberg, 37, had no idea that his latest lead role as Max Payne was ripped straight out of a Playstation.
“There was a bit of a red flag raised just because the video games I grew up playing had no story whatsoever,” Wahlberg said in a press conference call Friday. “I mean, I played ‘Pac Man’ and, like, ‘Asteroids.’ After realizing it was based on a video game, I obviously wanted to do a little investigating, but I was surprised at how elaborate the story was and how cinematic the game itself was.”
“Max Payne” the movie, opening this Friday, is the live-action adaptation of the 2001 video game of the same name. Wahlberg plays a cop with a vendetta for the first time in nearly a whole year as Payne, whose family and partner are brutally murdered. He embarks with guns a-blazin’ through the criminal underworld in search of those responsible for the murders.

As great a departure as playing a cop is for Wahlberg as an actor, he still laments the daunting task of psychologically preparing for the role.
“I would say I just had to put myself in that headspace of imagining that something horrific happened to my family – which is not a fun place to go, you know. I had to stay in that space for the course of the 12 weeks of production.”
The movie was given a PG-13 rating for what is described as intense violence, but the kid-friendly rating is unusual for a video game rated as Mature. But Wahlberg and director John Moore insist that the action is all there and is all very real.
“John Moore is such a good shooter that he really came up with new and cool ways to shoot all the action. There’s actually very little CGI in the movie aside from the demons, and the blowing up the roof of the building,” said Wahlberg.
Mila Kunis stars opposite Wahlberg as a femme fatale Russian mobster assassin. The “That 70’s Show” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” star admits that the takeoff from comedy into dark action drama was initially a bit of a shock.
“When I was in the KGB, in the youth, they taught me a lot, I got to really play off my personal experiences with Putin. He really taught me well back in the mother country,” Kunis joked Friday. “No! I mean, of course it’s a stretch!”
Ludacris, Nelly Furtado and Robin himself, Chris O’Donnell, also star in this latest addition to the long line of video game movies that will surely be better than “Hitman,” “Doom” and even “Resident Evil.”
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