Wanted

Review by Loc

A generation finds itself disillusioned, yearning for more than a life in cubicles and populating spreadsheets. Whatever happened to the American dream, of pursuing one of life’s undeniable rights, happiness? Well, some people still try it, each to varying degrees of success. I mean, how many aspiring actors are out there and how many Bill Gates have dropped out of school to start up a software company and accrue 40 billion dollars. Regardless, there’s been lots of pop-culture reflection on this state of mind, ranging from angst-filled music to cynic-filled writing and movies. The question also seems to be: why am I trapped in this cubicle, doing nothing to make the world a better place? Then there’s the self-hate part of, I go to Ikea and buy crappy furniture because the capitalism I now abhor is the lifestyle I choose to embody. Blah blah blah, keep whining. Anyways, what does this have to do with a movie starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, and Morgan Freeman, where the trailers talk about curving bullets and show off car stunts? Quick hit: Wanted uses the growingly tired premise of disillusionment to only mild success.

For those who are interested, Wanted is actually based on the comic series by uber-popular Mark Millar. He of great self-promotion and media hype, has been responsible for things like Marvel’s Civil War, his own Millar World sub-line of books, and of course, Wanted. However, saying that the film is based on the comic series is misleading. The film rights were optioned after only one issue had been published, and for all intents and purposes, a couple general ideas and a few choice scenes are adapted for the film. Other than that, this has very little to do with Wanted the series.

For example, the main character is Wesley Gibson, a bored-with-life cube-inhabiting work monkey. That’s the same as the comic. He gets recruited by shady characters after his father was assassinated. That’s the same also. Yet, some major components are changed from this point on, making it little comic, and all Hollywood.

First, Millar based the concept of Wanted on the notion of superheroes and supervillains. In this world, the villains banded together to rid the world of heroes. Now, they secretly control the world through a variety of power, magic, and brute evil. Wesley is recruited into this secret cabal and learns how heroes did exist, but were wiped out and the villains tricked the public into remembering these saviors simply as comic legend .

Second, the organization is amoral and mostly corrupt. Their goal isn’t to “kill one, save a thousand”. Rather, they’re the bad guys, they won the war, no they’re even more evil.

How did Hollywood interpret this? Well, instead of keeping this interesting take on the genre, they walked away from capes and tights. Now, in the movie, Wesley is recruited to his deceased father’s organization, a secret sect of killers. This league of assassins has honed their innate abilities to better serve the world. As mentioned earlier, they “kill one to save a thousand”. Strike one, contrived “honor” in this group.

Strike two, lame ass characters. Wesley eventually accepts his fate to become a killer as he is told his body adjusts to stressful situations unlike others: his heart rate reaches 400 beats per minute, dumping huge amounts of adrenaline into his system, allowing him to operate and process things at such a speed that he’s nearly superhuman. Um, OK. But worse than that, all the other assassins have their own specialty, and he gets training from them. There’s the Repairman who beats the crap out of Wesley, the Butcher who teaches Wesley how to use knives, the Gunsmith who stands around and watches Wesley try to curve bullets, and the Fox who just kinda hangs out being hot. I mean, this is like a bad videogame with crappy bosses.

Strike three through thirty, the horrible mythology created. SPOILERS follow: in this world, the Fraternity of assassins has existed for 1000 years. And how did they come to be? Some ancient weavers decided to look closely at some fabric they made and saw there were misses in the stitching. Sometimes you had a missed horizontal stitch, sometimes a vertical stitch. And these idiots decided to use binary code to assign 1’s and 0’s to these occurrences, which ended up spelling names, who they decided to kill. Um…what? Huh? Weaving? You’re going to try to peddle textile and fabrics as the instruments of destiny? The Loom of Fate, are you out of your friggin’ mind?? SPOILERS END.

Ah, but there are some redeeming qualities to Wanted. Surprisingly enough, it’s able to present many of these shortcomings with an air of credibility. The training, it’s stupid, but it’s not over-long or overblown. The plotting and pacing, it moves OK actually. The mythology, it’s an ugh-inducing development, but only after you think about it. When presented, it comes off OK.

In fact, Wanted tries several clever twists and turns to keep the audience on its toes. And these are interesting changes, they offer more possibilities and help avoid following the cookie-cutter path until the end.

However, it almost seems like everyone knew this flick was little more than your average Hollywood good-guy-bad-guy story. And to combat the boredom, they tried little tricks, upending the story here or adding in ridiculous action there. It helps make it easier to swallow, but it doesn’t change the fact that Wanted is nothing new and nothing to get excited about.

In fact, when you get right down to it, Wanted is pretty contrived and mediocre. It’s take on the self-imposed oppression by a generation of 30-somethings isn’t new and ground-breaking. The action, from the slow-mo car flips to the bullet-cams are retreads of other familiar flicks, like the Matrix. And while I’ve seen many people compare this to the Matrix, I actually would say this is what you get if you took Fight Club and tried to make it an action movie. Which is not a good thing.

Overall, Wanted has some entertainment tucked away in there. Some of the action is good, some of the dialogue is witty, some of the scenes are funny or tense. Yet, for the most part, it doesn’t do much to inspire a reaction of any sort. Out of 1000 saved lives, Wanted manages to target 500 successfully. Barely passing, almost an un-Wanted flick, if you catch my drift.