Wanted
This movie is hard for me to judge fairly because I've read the original comic book and the film is very different than the source material. The comic book is based on the premise: "What if the supervillains won and ruled the world?" In this world it turns out that all the supervillains teamed up and killed the heroes. Then, to make sure that no one would ever try to take them down, they made everyone in the world forget that superheroes ever existed and the control the world in secret as a kind of super-mafia.
In the movie the villains have been replaced with a league of assassins who have almost superhuman abilities. They have been around for a thousand years and kill people in order to guide the fate of the world.
Both films feature a man who is in a dead end job and one day finds out that his absentee father was the best killer in the world and has just been killed. He is then indoctrinated into the world behind the world.
Both the film and the comic feature some over the top murders and action scenes. However, they work better in the comic book because while the police don't know about the supervillains, the know enough to not ask questions and the villains can kill with impunity. In the film, however, they are secretive and the police are theoretically after them but they act as if they are above the law and there's never anything more than a newspaper headline to indicate that their over the top highly public murders have garnered any attention from the police.
There's also the fact that in the comic book the lead characters were drawn to look like Eminem and Halle Berry. In the film they are played by James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie. As good a job as Jolie does, I can't help but be distracted by the difference and disappointed that they had to get a white woman to play a role created for a black woman. McAvoy also kind of irritated me but I'm not sure why. It wasn't a big deal in his situation but it did come up from time to time.
As a stand alone film, I guess it was good. However, it could have been much more. It starts off very Fight Club-esque and it seems as if there will be some attempt to make a comment on the inanity of corporate life and the "waning of affect" that Frederic Jameson says is occurring. There is even a mention of an Ikea table -- which oddly isn't a table at all but rather a cheesy laminate counter top island.
After that interesting beginning, however, it quickly turns into Jumper. Full of special effects -- which to be fair were a million times better and more exciting than Jumper -- but basically being yet another story about daddy issues and fulfilling a destiny. Substitute Jamie Bell's mentor/teacher role in Jumper with Jolie in this and Samuel L. Jackson's older wiser potential mastermind who is one step ahead with Morgan Freeman's character and you've basically got the same film.
It is that notion that the main character is "fulfilling his destiny" that is perhaps most tiresome in this day. I wonder why it is that in a country where we worship the rugged individualist who can pull himself up by the bootstraps we have so many stories about the man who is born to a destiny and heir to become powerful because of his parents. Of course, to be fair the original story was written by a Scott and not an American so to ask why he wouldn't subscribe to American mythologies isn't fair.
The end is fairly close to the comic book and has an entertaining gun fight and is also surprisingly final. Had they tacked on a fairy tale ending it would have been much worse.
three thumbs up
the ending saves it
and Jolie is pretty good
different from the source
In the movie the villains have been replaced with a league of assassins who have almost superhuman abilities. They have been around for a thousand years and kill people in order to guide the fate of the world.
Both films feature a man who is in a dead end job and one day finds out that his absentee father was the best killer in the world and has just been killed. He is then indoctrinated into the world behind the world.
Both the film and the comic feature some over the top murders and action scenes. However, they work better in the comic book because while the police don't know about the supervillains, the know enough to not ask questions and the villains can kill with impunity. In the film, however, they are secretive and the police are theoretically after them but they act as if they are above the law and there's never anything more than a newspaper headline to indicate that their over the top highly public murders have garnered any attention from the police.
There's also the fact that in the comic book the lead characters were drawn to look like Eminem and Halle Berry. In the film they are played by James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie. As good a job as Jolie does, I can't help but be distracted by the difference and disappointed that they had to get a white woman to play a role created for a black woman. McAvoy also kind of irritated me but I'm not sure why. It wasn't a big deal in his situation but it did come up from time to time.
As a stand alone film, I guess it was good. However, it could have been much more. It starts off very Fight Club-esque and it seems as if there will be some attempt to make a comment on the inanity of corporate life and the "waning of affect" that Frederic Jameson says is occurring. There is even a mention of an Ikea table -- which oddly isn't a table at all but rather a cheesy laminate counter top island.
After that interesting beginning, however, it quickly turns into Jumper. Full of special effects -- which to be fair were a million times better and more exciting than Jumper -- but basically being yet another story about daddy issues and fulfilling a destiny. Substitute Jamie Bell's mentor/teacher role in Jumper with Jolie in this and Samuel L. Jackson's older wiser potential mastermind who is one step ahead with Morgan Freeman's character and you've basically got the same film.
It is that notion that the main character is "fulfilling his destiny" that is perhaps most tiresome in this day. I wonder why it is that in a country where we worship the rugged individualist who can pull himself up by the bootstraps we have so many stories about the man who is born to a destiny and heir to become powerful because of his parents. Of course, to be fair the original story was written by a Scott and not an American so to ask why he wouldn't subscribe to American mythologies isn't fair.
The end is fairly close to the comic book and has an entertaining gun fight and is also surprisingly final. Had they tacked on a fairy tale ending it would have been much worse.
three thumbs up
the ending saves it
and Jolie is pretty good
different from the source
