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Wanted - Review Hot

Movie Reviews

Release Date: June 28, 2008
Studio: Universal Pictures
MPAA Rating: R
Genre: Thriller • Action • Fantasy
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Writers: Michael Brandt, Derek Haas
Cast: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terrance Stamp
Synopsis: Woeful workaday weasel Wesley Gibson learns that his absent father was once part of a society called "The Fraternity".
Joining the mysterious Fox and the secret-holding Sloan, Wes is trained and taught in their ways to catch his father's killer.
The Review: Everything I wanted to know about WANTED I learned from Isaac Newton.

Watching the movie based on Mark Millar's and J. G. Jones’ graphic novel WANTED is like having your crotch smashed with a baseball bat every fifteen minutes.

Now that I have your attention, listen up class.
In case (like me) you were asleep during Physics class, here is one of the most important rules about the way the universe works. (And pay attention, because there WILL be a test.)

Newton's First Law of Motion states that an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force.

To translate: a bullet shot from a Mannlicher-Carcano M91/38 Fucile Corto-for example- will move and continue to in a straight line, unless, say, it hits Superman and bounces off his chest.

Moving from scientific theory to film theory, the most important ingredient in any science fiction, fantasy, horror or musical film is "the suspension of disbelief".

If you, the viewer, doesn't buy into a film's fantasitical elements –whether it’s believing a man can fly or not doubting that a Kansas farm girl will break into song-then nothing else in the film will come together.Ever.

Here are some famous (and not so famous) examples:

Sound does not travel in outer space and spaceships can only travel in a straight line, but that didn't stop STAR WARS from establishing in its iconic opening shot that not only is there sound in space, there's also the music of The London Symphony orchestra.

THE MATRIX began with the ultra sleek Trinity hopping between buildings and although the movie took awhile to offer up the explanation of how she (and Neo, Morpheus , Agent Smith, etc.) were able to defy gravity, the "virtual reality" explanation was so well presented that her fantastical feats appeared to be completely plausible.

In the genre of superhero films, for suspnesion of disbelife to work for non-comic book fans, it seems to be absolute necessity for the filmmakers to explain to the non-comics reading audience why a character would: A.wear spandex to
B. fight crime.

The reasons can be everything from this lame-o exchange from 1989's BATMAN:
Vicki Vale: Bats.
Batman: They're great survivors
to television’s “The Flash” where his red suit was explained away a supercooling high-tech tracksuit!

WANTED knows nothing of what is needed to establish and/or maintain that “suspension of disbelif”
is an assault on the senses-the bastard child of FIGHT CLUB and SPEED RACER and rarely lets up.

The whole film, the bastard child of FIGHT CLUB and SPEED RACER is a complete headache to behold and is an assault on the senses.

Here’s the plot: Cubicle chimp/Loser/ WESLEY GIBSON opens the film with a narration that was stolen from FIGHT CLUB (if not in word, then certainly in spirit).He’s a cog in the corporate machine, hating every minute of it, and prone to awful panic attacks which force him to gulp his pills in handfuls like a five-year-old OD’ing on Flintstones vitamins. Wesley’s life is the pits-his reprehensible boss screams at him, his “best friend” at the office is doing his girl, he’s broke and worst of all, when he looks up his name at Google.com , he gets the message:”Your search did not match any documents.”

WANTED gets bored with Wesley’s problems and there’s a big gunfight that defies gravity and even defies all movie logic. And, at this point, the movie lost me. Any coolness of that first (and all the ensuing) action setpieces quickly disappated as my inner critc started yelling “Oh come on-you’re kidding, right?” and, as IESB.net’s script reviewer Mr.E wrote: "You have got to be fucking kidding me!"

Speaking of Mr.E, he gave me permission to use parts of his script review to pad my plot description:
After a bit more without Wesley, we are introduced to Fox in a sequence that seems to follow her introduction in the comic.Wesley and Fox go into a massive 90-mile-an hour intercitycar chase. Fox blows out her car’s windshield and positions herself by lying on top of the car’s hood as she shoots at the pursuing vehicle. Wesley is forced to chose between looking up her dress or looking at the road. He makes the right decision and they live.

Unfortunately, the obligatory plot comes into ruin the story. Wesley's true place in the world is revealed, he's brought into a secret society called “The Fraternity”, and he's brutally trained-including frequent unexplained beatings and painfully cutting knife fights.

Best of all, he learns that, not only were his panic attacks actually his body achieving a king of hyper-sensitivity and he can see more and faster than the average bear, BUT-if he waves his hand in a side-to-side motion, (like a slider ball in baseball-thanks Scott for the correct verbage), he can make a bullet curve or go around corners.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Remember all the physics talk at the beginning of my review? Based on WANTED’s lack of adherence to anything resembling Newton’s laws, the film hit a dead end for me.

There’s more plot as Wes trains for his new and exciting career with accompanying mystic mumbo-jumbo, involving The Loom of Destiny (which sounds like something out of a Helllboy comic)-it’s all very Neo in THE MATRIX. Following his training montage, Wesley gets revenge on his skank of an ex. The story then twists and turns as Wes and Fox go to Prague (I'm guessing because it's cheaper to film there). Stuff blows up, plot, plot, plot, more plot and more explosions, lots of of the camera moving with the curving bullet trajectories in super slo-mo,the big apprentice/master showdown and the sequel friendly ending (which included the prominently displayed in-joke of Wesley’s cubicle next-door neighbor’s name : J. G.Millar).

Wheeeww!!! (Wipe hand across sweaty upper brow and reach for the Tylenol!)

The hyperactive direction by Russian director Timur (NIGHT WATCH) Bekmambetov was just too too too much . Everything in WANTED so completely over the top to the point of being nearly unwatchable.

My favorite scenes in the film were the times Wesley and Fox would hop on the top of Chicago’s (the exact cityis never named, but that’s where they filmed the flick last summer) Elevated railway. Just for a moment or two, the characters and the audience were able to take a breather and for me,there seemed something calming about standing atop a speeding El train, the cool night air brushing against my face, the steel cars vibrating beneath my feet as I could imagine the vast cityscape opened before me.

As the mysterious FOX, Angelina Jolie is literally a hollow-cheeked fright, her great green eyes squinting out of heavily smudged dark eyeshadows; her voluptuous lips set in a constant scowl/pout. Unfortunately, Her Lara Croft curves have wasted away to a nearly Maria Shriver-sized skeletal frame with stick skinny arms (according to my co-worker Suezanne, she’s so boney you can see both her radius and ulna) and boney legs. We only get a quick glimpse of her stunt butt (I’m guessing) and, at most,a fleeting view of her upper “plumber butt”.I know some of you were taking a day off from work to see Miss Jolie, but really,if you’re craving some sexy AJ skin, you should stay home and rent the HBO movie “Gia”

Readers of the WANTED graphic novel will know that Angelina Jolie is an interesting choice for Fox since her character in the book is a Halle Berry in SWORDFISH look-a-like.

Another fun fact is that WANTED is prominently mentioned in the Time magazine article Graphic Novels are Hollywood's Newest Gold Mine By Rebecca Winters Keegan (dated June 19, 2008) which includes this quote: “The joke in Hollywood now is that in a risk-averse era, comic-book adaptations have a distinct advantage: the drawings mean studio execs can see beforehand what the movie will look like.”
The bigger joke here is the only image used from Millar’s and Jones’ comic is Fox, shown from the side, from perhaps twenty feet away. With this illustration, Keegan and her editors wouldn’t have to explain that WANTED:The Book looks nothing like the movie and the comic Fox looks nothing like the Fox on film.

Heading on down the contractually deliniated credit list,James McAvoy is a fine young actor stuck in a part that’s nothing more than a clone of Edward Norton’s character in FIGHT CLUB, complete with dark circles under his eyes and a vacant stare to go with his “People ask me how I know Tyler Durden”-styled narration.

WANTED’s last big name is the Man, the Myth, the Voice-Morgan Freeman. I’m not going to say he’s wasted here because I’m pretty sure he took the role in an attempt to do something a little different, but he’s like David Warner in all those“Murder She Wrote” episodes– a fine actor working in a project not worthy of his formidible talents.

I’m interested in reading Mark Millar's and J. G. Jones original six issue mini-series Wanted. It was all about supervillains running everything, with lots of parallels between Wanted’s bad guys and the stable of evildoers that reside in DC comics.

By contrast, I’m looking forward to forgetting the film WANTED and I’m not planning on watching it again, no matter what special features the DVD may have.

PS.Whatever happened to Mr.E’s script reviews at IESB.net? I really liked his work.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

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