‘Wanted’ or “You lost me at loom of fate”

Posted by danhacker

July 1, 2008

In order to even attempt to enjoy new Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy action movie ‘Wanted’, you need to do one thing: Just go with it. Don’t think about the story at all. Just take pleasure in what is unfolding on screen and immerse your self in two hours loosely tied together action sequences. It’s a derivative? Oh yah. Is it clichéd? Very. But is it a fun movie? Well…yes.

Inspired by the graphic novel of the same name by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, ‘Wanted’ follows the character of Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) a lowly office worker with a list of compound neuroses who allows everyone in his life to walk all over him. Wesley hates his life and every thing that makes up his miserable existence. He has no desire to change anything and is too apologetic to do anything about his life. One day while picking up his anti-anxiety prescription at the local grocery story Wesley is greeted by Fox (Angelina Jolie) who mysteriously informs him that his father was the greatest assassin in the world and that the second best assassin is now aiming to kill Wesley himself.

This is where the movie moves away from the source material. Thankfully ‘Wanted’ really isn’t billing its self too heavily as being ‘inspired by the graphic novel”, because it isn’t anything like the graphic novel. I will say to anyone who liked ‘Wanted’ that they should go and see what the movie was inspired by because the source material is fantastic. ‘Wanted’ the comic is edgier, darker and more hardcore then the casual comic reader could probably handle. It goes to the line and crosses it time and again. Now ‘Wanted’ the movie…it goes to line and says “I’m not ready to go there lets blow some stuff up, play it safe and cut-out anything involving super villains”.

Now getting back to where I left off. ‘Wanted’ tells the story of how Wesley handles the news that there is more to his life than office drudgery since he is kin to greatness and only naturally should inherit his father’s place and take down the man responsible for his death. Fox quickly introduces Wesley to Sloan (Morgan Freeman) who is the head of “The Fraternity,” a group of assassins almost as old as civilization itself. There is a point in this movie where even the most unintelligent movie-goer will question the origins of “The Fraternity” and I say don’t even think about it. It makes no sense and will only lessen your enjoyment of the popcorn moments in the movie.

Speaking of “popcorn moments,” there are several in ‘Wanted’ and they are all pretty amazing. Particularly the final action sequence is phenomenally shot, and it is a shame that the rest of the movie is not of that caliber. ‘Wanted’ does what a well-constructed summer movie should: entertain. The majority of this movie is focused on Wesley being trained by Fox to become the assassin he was meant to be and is predominantly shown through montages. The montages bordered on interesting and campy, and I really expected to hear Joe Esposito’s “You’re the Best Around” appear midway through the film. If that had happened if would have added some levity to the film, which at times does skirt on taking itself to seriously. There are a lot of things that contextually don’t add up in ‘Wanted.’ From the origin of “The Fraternity” to the explanation of where the assassins get their special abilities it’s all preposterous and silly. This is why I can’t emphasize enough that viewers of ‘Wanted’ don’t focus on the movie’s flaws but just embrace it for what it is. A summer action movie that gives you James McAvoy as likable protagonist, Angelina Jolie as super-hot assassin (questionably hot to due to excessive boniness), Morgan Freeman saying Morgan Freeman-worthy lines and a lose but cohesive-enough narrative. If you don’t want to see ‘WALL-E’ and need to see something in theaters before ‘Dark Knight’ comes out, you really can’t go wrong with ‘Wanted.’

Dan Hacker

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