Stars:
James McAvoy
Angelina Jolie
Morgan Freeman
Every now and then, comes a movie which defies logic. Wanted is such a movie. To be fair, the movie is based on a comic book mini series, which I've neither read nor heard off before. So most of the stuff that baffled me could have well been explained in the comic.
Wesley (James McAvoy) is a guy leading a less than stellar life, with a dead end job, repeatedly put down at work by his boss, ignoring the fact that his girlfriend is cheating on him with his "best friend" and always popping pills to calm down his anxiety attacks. He gets entwined with a secret 1000-year old group of assassins known unimaginatively as The Fraternity when one of its members, Fox (Angelina Jolie) plucks him out of a gunfight at a convenience store. From there on, Wesley's life changes forever as he is told about how his father was killed by a rogue member of the Frat and that only he can avenge him.
The Frat carries out assassinations on targets selected by a "higher power" who transmits the coded information via a loom or weaving machine. The code is in the weaving itself, where each thread that is out of place represents a binary digit that eventually spells out the name of the doomed person. Morgan Freeman takes up the role of Sloan, the guy running the Frat, and the intrepreter of the codes from the loom. Yet, as the story progressed, the Frat appears to be more focused on killing each other off, rather than carry out assassinations.
The Fraternity boasts of skills that would make Rambo drool; the ability to bend bullets, slice and dice with a knife, leap across buildings with a single bound, take repeated beatings, performing the limbo rock on the roof of moving trains, blocking bullets with knives and able to heal themselves quickly with a mere milk bath. The Frat would have the ability to survive and thrive in the Matrix universe; indeed, with Fox's amazing talents, Neo would not hesitate to trade his bitch, Trinity for her.
One would expect some defiance of logic in such movies, but in Wanted, questions kept popping up one after another. Who is the "higher power"? Who finances the Frat? Is it possible for these "talents" to be hereditary? Does it take a mere 6 weeks to transform a wimpy accountant to a highly skilled assassin (with bullet bending talents, I might add)? Why shoot a guy from the roof of a moving train, when it's probably easier to do so from a stationary platform, like a rooftop? *Spoiler alert* Can the Frat members take Sloan's word that all their names actually came out of the loom and not conjoured by Sloan in a bid to save his own bacon?*End spoiler*
The absurdities kept cropping up in abundance, so it's simply better just to switch off and enjoy an outrageous and action-packed movie.
Wesley (James McAvoy) is a guy leading a less than stellar life, with a dead end job, repeatedly put down at work by his boss, ignoring the fact that his girlfriend is cheating on him with his "best friend" and always popping pills to calm down his anxiety attacks. He gets entwined with a secret 1000-year old group of assassins known unimaginatively as The Fraternity when one of its members, Fox (Angelina Jolie) plucks him out of a gunfight at a convenience store. From there on, Wesley's life changes forever as he is told about how his father was killed by a rogue member of the Frat and that only he can avenge him.
The Frat carries out assassinations on targets selected by a "higher power" who transmits the coded information via a loom or weaving machine. The code is in the weaving itself, where each thread that is out of place represents a binary digit that eventually spells out the name of the doomed person. Morgan Freeman takes up the role of Sloan, the guy running the Frat, and the intrepreter of the codes from the loom. Yet, as the story progressed, the Frat appears to be more focused on killing each other off, rather than carry out assassinations.
The Fraternity boasts of skills that would make Rambo drool; the ability to bend bullets, slice and dice with a knife, leap across buildings with a single bound, take repeated beatings, performing the limbo rock on the roof of moving trains, blocking bullets with knives and able to heal themselves quickly with a mere milk bath. The Frat would have the ability to survive and thrive in the Matrix universe; indeed, with Fox's amazing talents, Neo would not hesitate to trade his bitch, Trinity for her.
One would expect some defiance of logic in such movies, but in Wanted, questions kept popping up one after another. Who is the "higher power"? Who finances the Frat? Is it possible for these "talents" to be hereditary? Does it take a mere 6 weeks to transform a wimpy accountant to a highly skilled assassin (with bullet bending talents, I might add)? Why shoot a guy from the roof of a moving train, when it's probably easier to do so from a stationary platform, like a rooftop? *Spoiler alert* Can the Frat members take Sloan's word that all their names actually came out of the loom and not conjoured by Sloan in a bid to save his own bacon?*End spoiler*
The absurdities kept cropping up in abundance, so it's simply better just to switch off and enjoy an outrageous and action-packed movie.
7 comments:
i still find wanted to be too over doing it.
anyway, Fox is so much hotter than aunty trinity.
after this review, i guess i can leave Wanted out of my cinema list and merely consign it to my dvd list of movies to get.
wonder how many points out of 10 it would garner, were it rated......
c'mon, review Journey to the Centre of the Earth already!!!
it's one of my fence-sitters right now so any input would be good.
Grey:Yup...over doing it is an understatement. Imagine, the sanctuary of a 1000-year old secret society taken down by suicide rat bombers! Nuff Said!
Anon: Yeah...I watched Wanted on half-price, so it's ok. DVDs the right treatment for this movie.
Oh I guess I'll give it a 2-1/2 out of 5. The rating poll is not easy to set up. So I guess the readers will have to give their ratings in the comments for now.
Sorry but Journey is not high on my list, shouldn't be high on yours either. Will watch it when it goes half price. Suggest you watch Batman, Hancock and Get Smart...in that order.
hancock sucks! no pun intended.
thanks again for the movie listings/times via phone the other day, lightsaber.
the services you provide for your loyal readers is admirable.
Hancock is not bad. Why? Read about the movie here soon.
Always glad to be of service!
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