A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)

PLOT:

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A young tax collector (Leslie Cheung) finds his documentation soaked with rain, forcing the poor scholar to take refuge in the local Len Ro Temple. There he draws the ire of Taoist monk Yen Che-hsia (Wu Ma) who warns him to stay away from the seemingly haunted temple. After a close scrape with some zombies, the young man is seduced by spirit Nieh Hsiao-tsing (Joey Wang), who spares his life. The two fall in love, but the young ghost is pressured to kill and is engaged to be married in a matter of days. The tax collector, with help from the now sympathetic monk, travels into the spirit world to stop the wedding and release Nieh's soul.

REVIEW:

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The stories of 17th century Chinese author Pu Songling have often laid the groundwork for Asian fantasy films. His collection Liaozhai Zhiyi (Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio) contained the story Nie Xiaoqian (The Magic Sword) which is the basis for Tsui Hark and Ching Siu-tung's A Chinese Ghost Story. Followed by a number of sequels, rip-offs (often starring Wu Ma or Joey Chang), or television adaptations, the film provides an original mix of horror, comedy, martial arts and Spielbergian special effects to great effect.

While certainly dated, this mixture of impressive (for the time) Hollywood-style special effects with fantasy wuxia elements (which Hark dabbled with in Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain) and Evil Dead II-style Horror/Comedy has held up surprisingly well. In fact, its story of ghostly love is strangely affecting because of the two lead performances and the dreamlike glow which seems to exist throughout.

It's not surprising that Joey Wang was typecast as her ghostly persona from this film after its success, as she embodies both the forlorn ghost and vengeful spirit equally well. The late Leslie Cheung provides most of the comic relief as the bumbling tax collector, but is also disarmingly (and necessarily) charming and heroic in his attempts to save his lady. Ma Wu's expressive face gets a fully work out in the film, and he gets several opportunities to show off some impressive swordplay, as well as his singing skills in a rather bizarre musical interlude.

Similar to how Steven Spielberg gets a great deal of credit for the films he produced in the 1980s, this film's success is usually greatly attributed to producer Tsui Hark. However, director Siu-Tung Ching has had an impressive career in his own right, and deserves credit for some impressive choreography and influential visuals which seemed to have a great influence in future Chinese fantasy films (such as The Bride With White Hair). Both men also deserve credit for balancing elements of broad humor, kung-fu, horror, romance and fantasy in a way that still feels fairly natural.

While this is hardly a horror film in the traditional sense, it doesn't shy away from gruesome moments My favorite being when the ethereal ghost seduces a samurai, the camera sweeping into his mouth and through his body as we see him instantly age into a dried up corpse. Unfortunately, when the humor gets broad, particularly in a scene where Leslie Cheung's character attempts to contact the police, it betrays its subject matter into silliness. There's a tradition of this sort of humor in kung-fu films, and perhaps it's simply a cultural difference (combined with some shaky subtitles) which made these rare moments such a chore.

While certainly revolutionary for the time, it's hard to deny that some of the film's effects may appear slightly rough around the edges for modern viewers. The stop-motion zombies are a lot of fun, though more cheesy than scary, and some of the blue screen and rear projection effects look less than stellar. That said, the sheer scope of the film required a massive amount of special effects, and what is shown onscreen is admirable and even the more dated moments only add to the charm.

The currently available Region 1 DVD from Image Entertainment features a fairly clean, though dark, print of the film in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Audio is available in both Cantonese and Mandarin, though the English subtitles leave a lot to be desired. In a film as steeped in fantasy and Chinese mythology as this, a more accurate translation would have improved the experience, though an average viewer will still be able to follow the plot.

The only special feature is the film's trailer.

A Chinese Ghost Story created a new standard for mixing fantasy and martial arts, and remains a hauntingly romantic film. Certainly deserving of a better presentation on DVD, it's worth seeking out for fans of Chinese fantasy or swordplay films such as House Of Flying Daggers or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The film was followed by two sequels, as well as an animated film in 1997.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

PLOT:

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Anton Phibes (Vincent Price) is quite the renaissance man. Not only is he a doctor of music and theology, but he's also a famous organist and has a beautiful wife whom he adores. Yep, life is pretty good. At least until Phibes is disfigured in a car crash when rushing home to his sick wife, who ends up dying on the operating table. Phibes, blaming the doctors for his wife's death, decides to murder each with complicated schemes based on the 10 plagues visited upon Egypt by God in the Old Testament. He saves his final punishment (killing the first-born! Natch!) for Dr. Vesalius (Joseph Cotten), the head doctor in his wife's operation, who is forced to operate on his son while a container of acid hangs overhead. Also, Phibes has a clockwork orchestra, and a beautiful, silent female assistant. For some reason.

REVIEW:

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I've never quite understood the aesthetic of "camp". Certainly, I recognize it when I see it. In the exaggerated stilted dialogue and rainbow sets of the 60's Batman television series, or in the caricatured performances and music of John Water's films, but camp value often seems to come from the perspective of the viewer. Should camp always be intentional like in those cited examples? Is it the realm of drag-queens and Paul Lynde? Or, is it traditional movie-making with the volume turned up?

The humor in The Abominable Dr. Phibes is certainly intentional, and it's obvious that director Robert Fuest is well aware of the ridiculous excesses onscreen. What is strange about the camp aspects of Phibes is how they mix with rather traditional elements of british humor (in the form of the antics of the police force) and the sometimes gruesome horror elements. Phibes is a sympathetic creature, a man whose love for his wife and grief over her loss has been driven mad. But his revenge plot is astoundingly complicated to the point of being silly. The odd elements (liks his mute servent and clockwork orchestra) serving to underline the fun.

Vincent Price is the camp figure of this piece, and while his performance isn't restrained, it's also not blatantly over the top in a Frank-N-Furter (or, even his appearances as Egghead on Batman) sort of way. Joseph Cotton doesn't get a lot to do, but his eventual face-off with Phibes is a lot of fun and he makes a convincing doctor. More active in the plot is Peter Jeffrey as Inspector Trout, though his investigations often cross over into "hijinx" territory, even down to other characters mistaking his last name for various other fish.

There's a rather odd decision to rob Vincent Price of his distinctive voice for most of the film, and indeed the first ten minutes of the film features no dialogue at all. Phibes is only able to speak through machinery, and even then only in stilted form. Still, this method of communication gives emphasis to Price's booming voice when it is heard, his threats blaring through loudspeakers.

Phibes is presented as a tragic, sympathetic character, though the motivation behind his revenge is never explored very deeply. His hatred and anger at the doctors who operated on his wife would be more understandable if there was evidence of some sort of negligence on their part. Still, he isn't motivated by greed or general malice, and wishes only to rest in peace after his revenge is complete. (Apparently not TOO peacefully, however, since a sequel to the film; Dr. Phibes Rises Again, was released a year later.)

The violence in the film is actually quite ingenious, and the colorful way in which Phibe's rivals are dispatched are reminiscent of the later italian giallos and horror films of Dario Argento (and the Mario Bava films of the time). A personal favorite is the gentleman whom Phibes bleeds dry, leaving bottles of blood on the mantle next to his drained corpse. Certainly a gruesome idea, but isn't played for significant amounts of tension or horror. More disturbing is the fate of the nurse, who Phibes coats in a slimy vegetable extract before covering her with locusts who proceed to eat her flesh. Icky.

MGM provides the DVD for The Abominable Dr. Phibes in a beautiful widescreen anamorphic 1.85:1 print that looks terrific. A film this reliant on outrageous visuals benefits greatly from the clean, colorful image.

Unfortunately the only other extra afforded is the film's original theatrical trailer which oddly reveals Phibes face. Considering the impressive make-up is saved until the end of the film itself, it seems strange that they would give it away in the advertising. It's appearance is a memorable moment in horror history, and still remains rather chilling.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes is an amusing black comedy with a startling performance by Vincent Price at its centre. The murders are suitably inventive, though rarely gory and often played for humor rather than straight chills. Worth pairing up with the similarly themed Theater Of Blood.

Chopping Mall (1986)

PLOT:

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So, there's this mall. And it has a robot security system, which are sort of like those automatic vacuum cleaner-bots except they shoot lasers! Anyway, these things are fool-proof, until the mall gets hit by lightning turning them into KILLBOTS (Chopping Mall's original release title). Eight teenagers (including Barbara Crampton from Re-Animator, and Tony O'Dell from, uh, Head Of The Class) are having a late night party and start to get picked off one by one by these metallic monsters, until they arm themselves with supplies from the mall and attempt to get some revenge. The whole thing takes 77 minutes, which is just long enough.

REVIEW:

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It's difficult to be too critical of a film like Chopping Mall, since it has such modest goals. It's essentially a dead teenager slasher film with Short Circuit-like robots, and (despite a general lack of suspense) it delivers on that front. Lots of teens getting naked and having sex, and a reasonable amount of gore with a few cameos from the Roger Corman crew for cult-credibility. And at less than 80 minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Its gains are still rather meager, however, and doesn't serve to separate the film greatly from the hundreds of similar films released at the time. Because of the strangely short running time, the pacing seems a bit off and we're faced with a semi-climactic battle taking place 45 minutes in. With things moving forward this quickly character development tends to take a back-seat.

The robots themselves are quite impressive for such a low budget feature, and the director Jim Wynorski (director of too many films to mention) speaks highly of their maneuvering ability on the commentary. They have arms with clamps on the end that they raise threateningly, as well as the ability to shoot darts and (the considerably more effective) laser beams. Some effort is made to give the killbots a measure of personality, though it sometimes serves to make the main cast appear even more bland.

The in-jokes are fun, with appearances from Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov (reprising their roles from the cult classic Eating Raoul), Dick Miller (reprising his role from A Bucket Of Blood), Mel Welles (Attack Of The Crab Monsters), and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance from Angus Scrimm (Phantasm). Wynorski also throws in shots of his own movie posters because.. heck, why not?

The shopping mall location (Sherman Oaks Galleria, used in Commando!), brings unfortunate comparisons to Dawn Of The Dead, though if there's any subtext in this about our consumer culture, it's well hidden. The setting is used to good effect, though, with some well executed fire stunts and explosions.

The gore in the film is minimal, though the famous head explosion really does look quite outstanding. The filmmakers obviously realized this, since they put the shot in the trailer. Mostly the effect seems a bit out of place, however, as the film relies more on its rapid pace than extreme violence.

Chopping Mall has been difficult to track down on VHS for years, so it's nice that a few features were included on the long awaited DVD. Unfortunately, the film is presented in a rather rough looking full screen transfer that is only marginally better than a good home video copy. Sound is adequate, with the synth-heavy score (by B-movie music regular Chuck Cirino) coming through loud and clear.

The commentary by Jim Wynorski and (producer/writer) Steve Mitchell is a lot of fun, with them not being afraid to poke a little fun at their film while still remaining very complimentary about their cast and crew. There's plenty of great stories about working with Roger Corman (and his wife), and the two men have a strong memory for details which make them a pleasure to listen to.

We're also treated to a short featurette Chopping Mall: Creating The Killbots which focuses on the efforts of special effects man Robert Short to bring the killer robots to life. There's a good deal of information repeated from the commentary, but the added perspective of Short keeps things interesting.

The original trailer (/w head explosion) and a photo gallery (/w original poster calling the film Killbots) round out the special features.

Chopping Mall is a disposable example of 80s schlock, rising slightly above average thanks to a novel concept and decent production values. A lurid cover and appearances from cult faves have given it a strong reputation, but it does little to distinguish itself from the bloated genre.

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

PLOT:

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Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins), a Vietnam veteran, begins to have strange demonic visions that seem connected to his experiences during the war. Discovering that the surviving members of his platoon are experiencing similar dreams, Jacob begins to believe that his unit were the subject of tests by the American military. As the walls of his reality break down, and his hallucinations become more frequent, Jacob begins to uncover what seems like a massive conspiracy. Haunted by visions of death, including that of his young son, what is fantasy and what is delusion soon become difficult to discern.

REVIEW:

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Director Adrian Lyne is best known for erotic thrillers like Fatal Attraction, but with Jacob's Ladder he proves to have some serious chops when it comes to psycho-horror. Hanging off an amazing performance by Tim Robbins, the film creates some wonderful tension with its dream within a dream state, and has a memorable shock ending that still remains a bit shocking even after the audience has been bombarded with decades of of M. Night Shyamalan twists.

Admittedly, some of the fun of the film comes from picking out the many actors in the cast who went on to some degree of fame. Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction), Eriq La Salle (E.R.), Jason Alexander (Seinfeld), Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone), and even blink-and-you'll-miss-'em appearances by Lewis Black (The Daily Show) and Kyle Gass (Tenacious D!). However, at times this is a relentlessly bleak film with some rather disturbing imagery in the Cronenberg vein. It's often only Robbins' boyish charm, along with a winning supporting performance from Danny Aiello as Louis, Robbins' chiropractor, that add a little light to the subject matter.

In the most telling dialogue in the film, Louis (Aiello) tells Jacob (referring to Meister Eckhart):
Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.

This surprising bit of enlightenment informs the second half of the film greatly, and is a hint at Jacob's final fate.

Robbins plays Jacob as a disturbed, but very sympathetic character unable to deal with his reality slowing melting away. It's a charged performance, particularly in the scene (burned into my young consciousness) where he's wheeled into an operating room, tied to what appears to be some awful piece of medical equipment, and told that he's dead before they start operating on him. In the commentary, Lyne says that Robbins' acting in this scene made himself and his cameramen weep, and it remains a very disturbing, powerful scene.

The supporting cast is fine, with Elizabeth Peña giving a strong performance as Jezzie (short for Jezebel), Jacob's girlfriend. She has to strike the right note of sympathy, while maintaining moments of anger and frustration with Jacob's state, and her character has a strange sexiness even as her demonic tendencies are hinted at. Jason Alexander has a nice turn as a ice-chewing, frustrated lawyer, and Eriq La Salle gets a few nice character moments late in the film.

Lyne chose to go with all practical effects for the film, and the choice proved to be a strong one. The repeated effect of a person's head wailing around in fast motion (created by filming the actor at 4 frames a second) works exceedingly well, and is a technique aped in countless music videos and films (and video games, it would be hard to imagine Silent Hill without this film as reference). The choice to show some of the demonic imagery in flashes, or for just a few frames, makes the slow descent into hell feel very real.

The bad trip imagery can be effective, but sometimes (like in the appearance of tentacles in the subway scene) come off as a little hokey. The jumping around in time (and, apparently, reality) can be a bit difficult to take as well, sometimes coming off like an average Twilight Zone episode rather than a fully fleshed out film, but things tighten up in the final act. The religious imagery (particularly in the naming of the characters) can be a little obvious, but Lyne seems very comfortable with his pretensions and is deftly able to deliver the psychological goods.

The Special Edition DVD was originally released in 1998, and while the film is shown in it's original 1.85:1 format, the print is very grainy looking. Still, for a film that originally bombed, some care has been taken with the supplementary materials.

First, we have a commentary with director Adrian Lyne. It's screen specific, and often quite interesting, but there are long gaps (particularly near the end) that slow the whole thing to a crawl. Lyne is obviously quite fond of the film, and his memories of the production are sporadic but very entertaining.

Unfortunately, most of the interesting information is repeated in the half hour Building Jacob's Ladder featurette which also features talking head interviews with writer Bruce Joel Rubin (writer of Jacob's Ladder and Ghost) as we as some small interview snippets with Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña and Danny Aiello. Rubin seems appreciative of the changes which Lyne brought to his script, but is critical of the removal of a scene with Peña late in the film. The behind the scenes footage, particularly of the terrifying decent into hell, is quite interesting.

We are also treated to three rather significant deleted scenes with optional director's commentary. All come near the end of the film, though it's the Peña scene which is most significant. Its inclusion would have made the film a bit easier to interpret, but I don't think the film feels like it's missing the scene. The other two would have made the transition to the ending less abrupt, but would have slowed the pace at a critical time.

A theatrical trailer, television spot, cast & crew information and production notes round off the package.

Looking back, Jacob's Ladder seems to have had more influence on popular culture than one might think. While the director was going over territory mined by directors like David Cronenberg and David Lynch, this Vietnam variation on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge remains slightly more palatable while still featuring some shocking and disturbing imagery. A terrific psychological horror film featuring one of Tim Robbin's most impressive performances.

The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

Unlike video games, literature has had a much better rate of success when it comes to transfering the essence of the medium to the silver screen… that is unless your name is either Clive Barker or Stephen King.

The translation of King's work from book to visual format has undergone a sea change from campy to monumental thanks to the mini-series format.

Meanwhile, poor Clive's only iconic cinema character, Pinhead, has seen his stock drop severely over the course of several embarassing sequels to the Hellraiser franchise.

The Midnight Meat Train represents a return to good form for Barker fans, and don't be fooled by the silly title.

Here there be monsters.

Our story begins with a day in the life of photographer, Leon Kauffman (Bradley Cooper). Leon is an aspiring artist living solely for that one perfect shot; that picture that tells a thousand words. Unfortunately for Leon, he can never seem to seem to capture that special image. He's always in the right place, but he's never there at the right time.

Leon makes a meager living selling photos to the local newspapers, but he dreams of one day making it big and schmoozing it up with the well to do members of the nouveau riche art community.

On the urging of his girlfriend, Maya (Leslie Bibb recently of Iron Man fame), Leon goes out one night in an effort to finally capture that perfect moment. He manages to foil the near rape of a famous fashion model, Erika Sakaki (Nora), only to snap a photograph of her last moments on earth before she falls victim to Mahogany (Vinnie Jones), a serial killer who prowls the subway and has apparently been at his job for more than a century.

Despite being cursed with one of Clive Barker's trademark, unintentionally hilarious story titles (remember Rawhead Rex?), The Midnight Meat Train is actually a fairly effective chiller.

Ryuhei Kitamura keeps the pacing and the narration very tight and as you would expect from something based on the work of Britain's master of splatterhorror, the blood flows in rivers. It's a real shame that Lionsgate didn't have enough faith in this movie to give it a wide release because this movie really is much smarter than the humorous title would indicate. The performances are passable as far as horror movie standards goes. Vinnie Jones is menacing and Cooper does the best he can with what little is available, but Brooke Shields is content to merely chew on scenery and cash a paycheck.

There are quite a few moments in the film that are complete throwaways as far as the plot goes, but I can forgive Kitamura. After all, this is based on one of Barker's earliest short stories and Clive had a knack for trading plot for gore. Barker's gift for conjuring visions of nightmarish landscapes is somewhat betrayed by his hamfisted foreshadowing. Just read the short prose, Dread, sometime and you'll see what I mean.

The ending is predictable but Kitamura does his best with material that was pre-designed to telegraph nearly everything.

Thankfully, we horror fans have FearNet OnDemand to thank for bringing this movie directly to the masses at a cost of zero American dollars for the entire month of October. Check it out for yourself and then write the brass at Lionsgate a nasty letter letting them know what cowards they are for keeping this project in the dark, yet forcing another meaningless SAW sequel on us later on this month.

For the staff here at MoveFeast, Christmas isn't the most wonderful time of the year.

Halloween is.

Horror Of The Blood Monsters (1970)

PLOT:

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You may have to take my word on this one. Vampires are attacking people all over earth (aka a single dark alleyway), so five astronauts (including John Carradine!) head into space to find the cause of the vampire plague. Trouble with their spaceship lead them to land on a planet similar to earth, except that radiation has tinted the atmosphere various colors. After some quick brain surgery, they bond with a cave-girl (Jennifer Bishop) who tells the story of her tribe (the Tagani), who are battling with another saber-toothed tribe (as well as cave-bat-men and crab people) before she leads the crew to some crude oil. John Carradine distills the crude oil, and the astronauts blast off back to earth, leaving the cave-people to their radiation-filled doom.

REVIEW:

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A history lesson up front. Al Adamson (Dracula vs Frankenstein) purchased the rights to a filipino film called Tagani in 1965 with the hopes of releasing it in the US. Tagani was an odd caveman picture with monster movie elements like snake-men and bat-people, and Adamson thought it would appeal to the drive-in audiences. Unfortunately, by the mid-60s drive-in audiences were looking for color films, and Tagani was made in black and white. Oh well. Back to the drawing board, right?

Not quite. Adamson instead directed a number of (ultra low budget) framing color scenes featuring American actors, and proceeded to tint all of the Tagani footage (which now was presented as taking place on a different planet) red. Bingo. Color film. Except, once he brought it to producer Sam Sherman the whole thing was made unwatchable by the fact that the red tinting naturally tired the audience's eyes, sending them to sleep. Oops!

So. Sherman decided to tint the Tagani footage (as well as the footage of the astronauts on the planet) a variety of colors and wrote a few more scenes explaining "spectrum radiation". Adamson then filmed these scenes in 1970 (four years after filmed the initial color scenes, and five years after the initial purchase of Tagani) with a couple of the original actors, and tossed in a futuristic sex scene for good measure.

It's enough to make Godfrey Ho (tinted) green with envy, and the film proceeded to gross big numbers across the country thanks to a lurid title and an ad campaign featuring art from comics legend Neal Adams.

And the financial success of Horror Of The Blood Monsters is a triumph, because while the footage from Tagani is interesting, original, and shows reasonable production values, the Adamson footage is awe-inspiringly bad. Footage of the spaceship landing on the alien planet is simply a shot of a model being lowered onto some rocks (with an awkward tilt when it lands). The Mission Control set appears to be three seconds of stock footage from another film with close-up talking heads of new actors awkwardly edited in. The film begins with some shots of vampire attacks that were obviously (and admittedly) included just to have more color footage and some scenes to throw into the trailer.

Carradine hams it up as the irritable Dr. Rynning, but even his wide-eyed silliness can't mask the serious flaws that have made this film a favorite of the so-bad-it's-good crowd. It's almost a shame that Tagani, which looks to be a fun film in its own right, is best known as the center piece of this bizarre (though original) cash grab.

The DVD from Image Entertainment features a full screen print of the film which definitely shows its age, but perfectly serviceable. The tinted scenes can be a little difficult to watch at times (particularly the blue tints meant to represent night), but details are never hard to make out.

We're treated to a really informative commentary from producer Sam Sherman who relates the quite fascinating history of how the film came to be, and shares a number of interesting stories about the filming (and post production) process. Sherman fully recognizes the film's flaws, and spends a good portion of the commentary poking fun at them, but he also recognizes that the film has a wide fan-base and doesn't believe that it accurately represents Adamson's film-making talent.

We're also treated to the film's original theatrical trailer, an original trailer for Tagani (which appears to have eventually gotten its own release), a neat "House Of Terror" live horror show promo, as well as a selection of trailers for Mad Doctor Of Blood Island (1968), Brides Of Blood (1968), Beast Of Blood (1971), Brain Of Blood (1972, also from Adamson), Blood Of The Vampires (1966, called Curse Of The Vampires in the trailer), and The Blood Drinkers (1964).

Certainly inventive, but also unequivocally bad, Horror Of The Blood Monsters is definitely entertaining, from the bizarre monsters of Tagani to the low-budget charm of Adamson's footage, and the bizarreness of the computer and flashing lights-assisted love-scene. Fans of drive-in fare will eat this up, and the extra features add some much needed perspective, but those looking for coherence best look elsewhere.

COMING SOON: Max Payne (2008)

The curse surrounding the fate of film adoptations of video games is common knowledge. As much as people pray that there is a special place in Hell for Uwe Boll and that it is kept very warm in anticipation of his inevitable arrival, the guy is merely perpetuating a sin. Uwe's not the wellspring for the disaster that is the garden variety video game movie.

Street Fighter, Dead or Alive, and Silent Hill were perfectly fine at being awful without the directorial effort of Mr. Boll.

The worst thing is that all gamers are co-conspirators. There are titles that we love so much that wanting to see them on the silver screen becomes an all-consuming desire. When the films are finally made, gamers learn the hard lesson of what happens when you get what you wish for.

And still, we hope beyond hope that when our favorite game gets a Hollywood makeover, the results will be flattering.

That being said, I'm currently in a constant state of dread mixed with euphoria concerning the pending release of Max Payne.

From the looks of the trailer it appears that director John Moore is on the right track. If the trailer is an indicator, the film seems to hold Max Payne's game lore in high esteem. All of the elements seem to be in place from the heavy Norse mythology references to the snappy, ominious dialogue and the beloved Bullet Time effects.

More importantly, the film seems to present these elements in a way that is neither pretentious nor stupid.

Mark Wahlberg looks comfortable as our tortured hero, but I'm not quite sold on the casting of Mila Kunis as femme fatale, Mona Sax. The casting of Ludacris as Jim Bravura is also kinda weird. I loved Michael Clarke Duncan as The Kingpin in Daredevil, so my problem with Ludacris as Bravura isn't about race as much as it is that Bravura is a elder statesman in Payne's life and is sort of an old curmudgeon.

The casting of Ludacris stings of a decision based on the notion that being hip is more important than being accurate. Still, Ludacris was one of the few bright spots in the otherwise lackluster 2 Fast 2 Furious so he may prove me wrong.

The heavy, gothic tone of the trailers gives me hope that Max Payne has stuck to its guns (no pun intended) and will a bright spot of the Fall 2008 movie season.

But I have no illusions. Max Payne will either be really good.. or really awful...