mimschkin's Movie Review of Wanted (2008)

Really dim film
mimschkin - wrote on 01/25/10

Wanted, when it boils down to it, is basically a gun fetish movie. Somebody else on here pointed out that it reminded him of Fight Club, but couldn't put his finger on why. Here is why: the main character of Wanted pretty much lifted the narrator of Fight Club and inserted him into a sub-mediocre film about guns.
So the plot is: the narrator from Fight Club (James McAvoy) realises his life sucks just in time for Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman tell him he stems from a long line of assassins who kill people because THE LOOM OF FATE tells them to, and that his life doesn't suck anymore. He undergoes some training where he learns to curve bullets because that's cool or something? Whatever. In any case, he basically gets given a gun and then he feels like an empowered man because he can shoot people because the magical loom tells him to. Which brings me to this loom business; of all the narrative devices they could have picked, the writers decided that a loom that weaves fabric that contains anomalies that are the secret code that tells them who they should assassinate next as the appropriate one. That is a good plot device, I particularly look forward to the Knitting Needles of Truth and the Crochet Hook of Destiny in the sequels.
Overall, this film is conflicted. They introduce these themes of freedom and determinism and utilitarian ethics about two thirds in, and yet the people who are going to be enjoying this are the ones who think the effects and the shooting and guns and stuff are really really cool. Similarly, when our antihero finally hits his tyrannical boss in the face with a computer keyboard (with tacky slow-motion results) and tells his skank of a girlfriend to get lost, it I'm not sure whether I should be cheering, or recoiling in horror. I believe the desired effect is the former but this is somewhat difficult to do when the protagonist basically went from a dead-end job to killing people for no good reason. Is all this really justified? Not really, but it makes for some 'good' action scenes (i.e. getting to see a bullet penetrate a person's skull in slow-motion. Neat.).