Sunday, July 06, 2008

Wanted Not Wanting

Wow! What's better than a movie scene where the hero shoots a bad guy through the mouth and uses the exit wound to shoot through at like, 20 more bad guys as he uses the body as a human shield?
I'll tell you: Angelina Jolie lying on her back in a skimpy white dress spread legged out on the bonnet of a car firing pistols akimbo at an oncoming bad guy while steering the car with her foot!
This is Wanted!

James McAvoy has come a long way since his appearance at the tender young age of 22 in Band Of Brothers. Among other things; he's recently been nominated for some of the most prestigious acting awards- BAFTA's and Golden Globes for roles in Atonement and The Last King Of Scotland. It would be a shame if I lumped Wanted in with these films as that would reduce it to the yawning award-hunting pretentious nonsense that they represent, no, Wanted is guns, Wanted is bullets, Wanted is blood, Wanted is Death and McAvoy has hit the A-list. If he can do all this? Then I welcome him.

Along with McAvoy, there is of course appearances from Angelina Jolie who guaranteed the movies DVD sales to the sweaty palm brigade with the glimpse of a bath scene in the Red-Band trailer. Morgan Freeman who seems to have decided to take a leaf out of Sam Jackson's play-book and start using the word "Motherfucker". Terence Stamp trying his damnedest not to be General Zod (give up Terence- you're General Zod) and Thomas Kretschmann who has played small but significant parts in Hollywood movies and television since 2000 including U571, Blade II, 24, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Next.


The plot is utter nonsense, (adapted from a comic book written by one of the leading talents in the industry, Mark Millar) a 1000 year-old fraternity of ruthless assassins who take orders from a magic loom (you heard me - a magic loom) but the production values, stunt work, special effects and direction are top-notch. Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian director of Night Watch and its sequel Day Watch was at the helm and much of his style was translated perfectly into this western blockbuster. Danny Elfman one of the worlds leading score composers also lent his talents to craft this work of art.


This movie is unrealistic and pure fantasy, so one cannot hold it's "faults" against it. These fantastical elements include the ability to increase your heart rate to 400 beats per minute, thus producing more adrenaline, apparently empowering you to slow your perception of time like Max Payne allowing you to shoot the wings of flies, curve bullet trajectories or leap from the window of one building 20 floor up and land unscathed in another building 100yrds away. So provided you can suspend your knowledge of physics for a while (or just like stuff like The Matrix), you'll enjoy it. Also the idea of inputting your name into an internet search and not yielding any results at all is impossible - try it.

Final Verdict: While it's superbly stylish, has an abundance of blood, bullets and mayhem there could have been more or better explosions and pyrotechnics for the class of movie it was.

Colonel Creedon Rating: *****



Warning: US Red-Band trailer below (contains spoilers) Not for the feint of heart!


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wait a minute Guy meets a Good looking Gal, She recruits him into an organisation with the promise of fantastic powers, is this the Matrix or a cult?