Alright, so I had a little vacation this weekend. Relaxed, hung out with some freinds from college, swam, camped, and got my face kicked in by a certain Angelina Jolie vehicle. Wanted comes to us from acclaimed Russian director, Timur Bekmambatov, whose "Watch" series (Night Watch, Day Watch, and the currently in post production Twilight Watch) are the highest grossing films in Russian history. This is his first English language film, and stars Angelina Jolie, and my boy, James McAvoy. Now, does this pedigree equal a solid film?
Wanted is the story of a young guy, Wesley Gibson, who is stuck in his dull life, which includes back stabbing best buddies, cheating girlfriends, bitchy bosses, a rather boring job, and a father who was the greatest assassin the world had ever known. Now, that last part is discovered by our hero in the begining of the film, and send his life in to a spiral. He discovers that his father was part of a group of assassins known as the Fraternity, led by Morgan Freeman's Sloan. They "restore the balance of power in anyway they need to". Once this is discovered, Wesley begins to train to find and kill the man who offed his father. However, things don't go to plan and this film has it's fair share of twists. It also has it's fair share of enjoyable moments, and keeps you in, and on the edge of your seat.
First, this film is based on a graphic novel of the same name, that is not all that similar to the film. After dinner the night I saw the film, I had the chance to take a gander to take a look at the source material, and was rather turned off by how mysoginistic and over the top violent that the novel was. The film only took the names and the very basic plot line from the graphic novel, and it's a great thing, because if they had stayed extremely faithfull, like say, 300 (which I despise), it would have been to much and not nearly as fun. The film really is a kick to the mouth. It's like watching a fireworks show (thank you Clover). You are blown away for a while, then there is a finale that is over the top, and then it's done, and it seems like it only went for about ten minutes. This was the briskest two hours I have felt in the theatres in a long time. Everything here is over the top and you really have to go with it. This is a perfect example of a film that, if you can't suspend your disbelief, then you will HATE this film. But if you allow yourself to watch this specticle, then you will have a complete and utter blast. The performances are standard for an action film, but I was suprised with how well James McAvoy was. He played the nerd turned ass puncher really well, and he's a great actor to boot. Jolie and Freeman were fine, and it was nice to see a little cameo by the great Terence Stamp. The mythology is fun to get into, but thats another example where you really just have to go with it. All of these positives said, there were a couple flaws that I noticed.
The biggest problem is the middle of the second act. It just really kind of dragged on, and sort of hindered my experience, and was not helped by a twist, that caused a large amount of innocent beople to die. That whole scene, and I even remember turning to my girlfriend and saying "they just killed a shitload of people", and it really bugged me. It seemed like it was there just to simply play into a plot twist. Just lazy screenwriting to me. Other than that, there aren't many problems. Common is not very good, some of the lines are horrible, and a few of the action sequences are repetative. However, this film is unapologetic about what it is, and you have to love that. If you can suspend your belief and just let yourself go along for the ride, than you will have a blast. It's a heavy metal rocker jamming out on a 500 pack of red bull. It's going to polarize people, so if you see it, leave a comment!
ALright guys, I'm back for the week, so expect a DVD review, news, and a top 10. What should the top 10 be???
Go see something good!!
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