jaredpahl
To call Wanted an "action movie" would be like calling Cannibal Holocaust a "horror flick". This movie is one step removed from being the most stylish snuff film ever made. Wanted is full of flair, inventive action scenes, and good special effects and sound, but it is thoroughly violent. Taken on craft alone, Wanted is good, but factor in the effect of the endless scenes of vicious, bloody murder, and this becomes a film you endure rather than enjoy.Wanted is about James McAvoy's Wesley, a frustrated office worker who is recruited by Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman into an underground assassin community to finish his legendary gun master father's last job. Or at least that is what the plot summary is about. In reality, Wanted is about violence. Lots and lots of increasingly brutal violence. Wesley and Fox (Jolie) kill gobs of hulking thugs, sometimes in creative ways, but always with bullets. Lots of bullets. And that's the movie, basically. Characters stop and talk here and there, but almost no single scene ends without somebody getting maimed or killed.Those scenes of protracted murder start out kind of fun. There are some imaginative sniper scenes, with long slow motion tracking shots of the bullet as it passes through the air, and Fox teaches Wesley to curve bullets in a memorable early scene. Director Timur Bekmambetov takes a hard-edged, gritty kind of style and rolls with it. For about an hour, you might get caught up in the mayhem. By the end, it's just too much. The movie is under two hours, but without any kind of engaging story to prop up the action, fatigue sets in quick. As things get more and more gruesome, the slickness of the bloodshed is lost, replaced by a feeling of nauseous unpleasantness. I understand Wanted is no family film, and I can get into angry, stress-relieving ultra-violence as much as anybody, but Wanted is a bridge too far for me. It is a very mean spirited movie, taking way too much gleeful pleasure in blowing the brains out of hundreds of heads. That's where the movie really crossed into snuff territory for me. I can handle violence. I can handle very gruesome violence. But the kind of sustained gun porn seen in Wanted would test anyone's stomach. The action is done well, and in a shorter, more absorbing story, it would work. By itself, drawn out over almost two hours, it doesn't. Your results may vary, but after a while, I was entirely turned off by Wanted.54/100
Richie-67-485852
Action and adventure teamed up with good story-telling is what you can expect here. Its not perfect but it does take us to the edge pretty well and manage to keep us there. Furthermore, the story is not far-fetched as many people take medications when in reality they can and should handle their pain. Why? They need to explore beyond the pain where the answers of who they are and why they are here are to be found. They threw in a twist or two so pay attention and enjoy how they have taken the fine art of killing and the reasons for it to new levels. Have a finger snack available (popcorn, sunflower seeds etc.) so you don't nail bite. I wouldn't mind a sequel if they do a nice job on it but you never know about Hollywood as they tend to ruin a good thing for the love of money. What they don't know is that quality and good effort will bring its reward if you have faith. Perhaps Hollywood needs more faith? Enjoy
