“Max Payne” raises a major pertinent question with regard to video games: Do they really represent such an unyielding source of complexity and inspiration to be converted into silver-screen productions? Or are screenwriters in need of a stirring break?

Whatever the answer may be, “Max Payne” is far from reaching the density required for it to be included in the first category.

Jammed with agonizingly lengthy, brain-cell-killing, incoherent scenes of tedious elucidation, the video game gone into movie remains a chaotic and bewildering jumble.

Impersonated by Academy Award nominee Mark Wahlberg, Max Payne is a cop locked in a world of pandemonium, torment and hopelessness. He is determined to avenge the murders of his wife and daughter and this mission of retaliation, which lingers in his head, opens him a path most of us would walk off immediately.

Mila Kunis fills the bloody shoes of Mona Sax, a Russian assassin who is also seeking for revenge. She wants to find the murderer of her sister, Natasha, played by Olga Kurylenko, and would do anything to punish him.

Max Payne knows Natasha as well, as she stole his wallet and investigators want answers from him, but he is unable to give them any detail upon the woman’s death.

In the meantime, these acts of violence are being looked into by internal affairs detective Jim Bravura (rapper Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), who also keeps an eye on Max Payne and becomes suspicious of the cop.

Close to death, Max Payne is motivated by an apparition of his late wife and child. Since she specifically tells him, “You’re not done yet,” the avenging cop gathers all the force he needs to escape from the hands of death. While he is trying to regain his self-control, Max Payne takes a drug called Valkyrie, which gets in his possession as a result of a plotted scheme arranged by the bad guys, evidently. Therefore, the drug takes Payne to the dreadful criminal world that has robbed him of everything he had.

Valkyrie consumers are thrown into a black side of the underworld that washes out the shell of civilization and might as well be wiped out. Nevertheless, while users of the drug come into contact with these more or less real life nightmares, normal people consider them mere figments of the imagination or wild spin-offs.

As the film mainly concentrates on the effects of this drug, it forgets to provide viewers at least a modest history of the main character, namely Max Payne.

When it comes to converting video games into movies, directors find themselves walking on a cutting edge. Big admirers of the game will go all-out to find mistakes and imperfections in the movie’s adaptation, while moviegoers who have not played the video game may not succeed to link up. Unfortunately, “Max Payne” may be a significant source of double pain.