Wanted is supposedly based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar but it doesn’t really have a single thing to do with the novel aside from some character names and a tone of paradox and a lot of cynicism. The original was about a lot of costume comic super villains in a real world setting…Wanted is about gun wielding, ninja assassins. It’s hard not to imagine the film makers are consciously tempting to use Millars template to cover up classic action film clichés. Not to mention that you can visualize the same film makers sitting around a table saying “did you hear what Sin City and 300 made?” before actually reading the damn thing…
James McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson playing Edward Norton’s role from Fight Club: a life beaten office worker who longs for something more. That ‘something more’ ends up being the revelation that his long lost father was a member of a team of super human, gun-slinging hit men, who was recently murdered by a rogue assassin. He’s scooped up by Angelina Jolie a.k.a ‘Fox’ and is offered his dads old job. Cue an ass-long training montage.
Gifted with adrenaline and breath control and the ability to fling bullets around like curve balls, the ‘Fraternity’ are assigned targets by destiny itself, translating binary code prophecies from random stitching woven into the fabric of the magical ‘Loom of Fate’. This ridiculous devise is the centre metaphor for the whole movie and it’s so stupid, that it’s actually kind of brilliant. Part of the fun of a movie like this is watching good actors do what they can with this sort of material. McAvoy gives it his all, whilst Morgan Freeman puts a pitch dark spin on his traditional mentor role…and Angelina looks a million dollars throughout.
Russian director Timur Bekmambetov brings the same kinetic action from his infamous Night watch and Day watch movies, but the screenplay just doesn’t serve for any narrative complexity. If you can imagine squashing Fight Club and The Matrix into a single movie, you can pretty much guess what happens in 90% of Wanted including the third act ‘big twist’ which…well, if you can’t see it coming a mile away, you need to watch more movies.
Incidentally there is a running gag about rats, which I found to be in really bad taste and mean spirited and I know for a fact I wasn’t alone in that. Not cool, guys. You’re free to find me a hypocrite for enjoying all the simulated human slaughter and not the massacre of rodents, but in my defence I would say the average rat can’t help being scuzzy and repellent…it’s a rat. What excuse do humans have?
I can’t really say this movie is good but it’s definatly not bad. It’s a lot of fun, doesn’t ware out its welcome, reasonably inventive and does what it says on the tin. There’s nothing in it to render it objectionable. It's just rather unspectacular and I cant recommend you run out to see it if you’ve already seen Iron Man, Hulk, Indiana Jones, Prince Caspian, Kung Fu Panda or any other recent action movie that is better or if you’re really, really eager to hear Morgan Freeman say ‘mother fucker’.
