Suzanne B. wrote on 2/12/2009...
1 of 3 member(s) found this review helpful.
Action-packed, bad-ass performances by Jolie and crew. Interesting plot, pretty violent, but pretty good.
Vanessa V. (sevenspiders) wrote on 12/15/2008...
2 of 4 member(s) found this review helpful.
At the risk of sounding like a nerd, I have to say that Wanted's biggest failure is its deviation from the original comic. The movie's cleverest and most exciting parts are those drawn from the comic; where corporate drone Wesley is plucked from his life of apathetic misery and whipped, or rather pounded, into shape as an elite assassin. As an assassin Wesley joins the ranks of the secret Fraternity, and the movie takes a drastic and ill-advised turn.
The comic-book Fraternity is an organization of supervillains who murder, rape and pillage the world with total impunity. The movie Fraternity is a sort of DaVinci-Code guild that takes their orders from a magical loom? I can understand the screenwriters desire to make the characters somewhat redeemable, instead of leaving them as an organized band of droogs a-la A Clockwork Orange. But seriously, a magical loom?
There's some moderately impressive CGI, but nothing stunning enough to distract from the film's stupidity. Angelina Jolie tries to mellow her bad-assness with a hint of traumatic childhood, but comes across as implausible as the rest of the plot. Morgan Freeman sounds good but has absolutely no conviction. James McAvoy actually does a remarkable job as Wesley, accurately capturing the insecurity and rage. But nothing in the acting elevates the film above its inanity.
The source material is nihilistic, dark and morally ambiguous. But at least its original. Wanted the movie tries to clean up that moral ambiguity into a more mainstream superhero movie. How ironic, in the process of making the story more palatable, they made it nauseatingly bland.
Jeff V. (burielofmel) from HARRIMAN, TN wrote on 12/2/2008...
6 of 8 member(s) found this review helpful.
I didn't expect this movie to be any good. The CGI, the unreal stunts and car crashes and all that. I'm not a big fan of Angelina Jolie movies (except maybe Tomb Raider) but I thought she was good in this. She looked good and her character was cool. I began watching this, expecting a bad movie. This feeling continued as I watched the first few minutes. I found myself thinking of the Ed Norton character from Fight Club as I watched the main character at his cubical, telling his story in Voice Over. In the end though, I was pleasantly suprised and would recommend it.