I went out and saw Wanted last night. I expected it to be a kind of brainless but fun action movie. The kind that, if I believed in such a thing, would be best enjoyed on 'The Big Screen', or something like that. I don't know. I'm usually just as happy to watch something on my own TV as I am to watch it at the theater. Maybe it's just me.We start off at a generic office birthday party attended by a generic office worker named Wesley. Wesley's father left when he was a week old, his best friend is sleeping with his girlfriend and Wes suffers from panic attacks. All in all, it's a pretty shitty existence. That all changes the day he meets Fox.
Fox is an assassin and she prevents a rogue assassin named Cross from killing Wesley. She then takes him to Sloan who explains to Wesley that the panic attacks are actually a special ability to slow down time and allow him to react quicker than normal people. This allows him to do some amazing things like shoot the wings off of a fly. It's not long after this that Wesley decides to join The Fraternity, and ancient guild of assassins. Wesley has one objective in mind, to find Cross, the man who killed his father.
That's the short, abridged, version. It's a bit more complicated than all that, but, you know, people hate spoilers. And, there will be some spoilers soon. I'm just that kind of guy.
Wanted was simply high intensity fun. Pure escapism. There is nothing here that you haven't seen before in other movies, but director Timur Bekmambetov did an amazing job of making the movie fresh and entertaining. It was a wonderfully dark sense of humor while still being able to get serious when it needs to. James McAvoy plays the everyman who finds out that he has special powers, but instead of stopping purse snatchers like Spiderman, he uses his power to kill people.
And, I have to admit that I got a kick out of Konstantin Khabensky being in the movie. Khabensky has previously worked with Bekmambetov as Anton, the main character in both Night Watch and Day Watch. And Chancellor Vallorum was pretty cool.
However, there was also something that I didn't like. The ending. This is your warning, I'm about to talk about the end of the movie. If you don't want to read about it, stop now. Here's the thing, movies are all about suspension of disbelief. You have to allow yourself to accept that there is a way to curve a bullet like a cue ball. You have to accept that in this world, the laws of physics are slightly arbitrary. And, you know, for two hours, I was able to believe in that. And then, Wesley confronts Sloan and reveals to the Fraternity that Sloan has been lying about who their targets are supposed to be, and in his defence, Sloan shows everyone that they had been marked to be killed too! And they believe him! Sloan admits he's been making up their targets himself and then they accept it on faith that he didn't just make it up that they had been targeted too! To me, that seems a little unbelievable. I can't imagine why no one would question him on it. Then, after Sloan escapes, he walks right into a trap by deciding to get right up close to Wesley for a point blank kill. Why not do it from a distance?
Overall, it was a well made movie though. It's really fun. It's everything you could want in a post-Matrix action movie. The effects look good. They throw in a couple new ideas and in the end, it's 2 hours of easy on the brain entertainment. I can't wait to see it on DVD now! 8 trains derailing on a mountain bridge after you drove your car into the side of it out of 10.
