"Shoot the wings off the flies" (WANTED)

Cafe Society
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While everyone else is wetting themselves this week over Batman coming to town, and still cleaning up the (undeserved) drool over “Iron Man”, you might want to go check out “Wanted”.

That’s the one with the stupid looking preview with curving bullets and Angelina Jolie.

It’s also – for Christ’s sake – fucking Rated R. Which at least signals that a guy is making a movie he wants to make and not something designed by studios to appeal to 13 year olds.

Ridiculous, and over-the-top, to be sure, but with a great “everyman” protagonist (slated to play Bilbo Baggins, by the way), a twisty plot, a “Loom of Fate” and more humor and creativity in any 5 minutes than I’ve seen in the last 10 comic book movies. It, actually, is based on a comic but it’s definitely not of the same structure that has become so tiresome.

It’s not perfect. It borrows heavily from other movies, but it feels more just like using that language rather than stealing.

But, I bet when it comes out on DVD, everyone is going to be asking “Where was this, and why the hell did I go see Hulk instead of it?”

It’s very enjoyable, though, just to watch for the details that fill the movie, for example,

after he smacks his “friend” in the face with his keyboard, the letters AND HIS FRIEND’S TOOTH are used to spell out “FUCK YOU” as they scatter through the air.

If you’ve seen this, maybe you’re on board with these action scenes. I loved everyone one of them. . .

– Opening scene with his “father”

– train hanging off a bridge

– jumping the limo to shoot through the sun roof

– walking through the loom room using the guns from all the people he’s assassinating.

– great “tie-back” assassination of Morgan Freeman

– the rat army

– excellent fist fights.

There are a couple plot holes that I’ll ask about if anyone else is interested in discussing this movie. But, overall, this was just what I was looking for which is more than I can say for Iron Man or Indiana Jones. Much better movie than those.

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I had a ton of fun with this movie. I’m lucky that I’m not the type of person that has to worry about plot holes, or physics that don’t work. It was great. It passes my litmus test of “would I see it again in a theatre”. The answer of course is: Yes.

3

I hated this movie from frame one.

At least for the first hour. When they got to the train on the bridge, I shrugged and surrendered, and appreciated the over-the-top visuals for what they were.

The story is choppy, the characters are nonexistent, the coolness is forced, the premise is stupid.

But it looks nice.

4

I would watch this movie again just on the strength of James McAvoy’s performance. Plus the over-the-top action is downright hilarious.

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But the movie IS curving bullets and Angelina Jolie. It’s as good or bad as the preview. I vote for bad.a great “everyman” protagonistIf you like self-pitying, self-absorbed, yet un-self-aware psychopaths, yeah, he’s great. I found the whiny, droning narration incredibly annoying. The movie’s Great Big Twist depends on the protagonist cold-bloodedly killing a man who is at that moment saving his life, because some guy told him a magic loom said to kill him. Then he’s all boo-hoo I killed my father, not just some random stranger who was saving my life.Well, fuck the angsty little psycho. Fox’s character at least had an excuse for being really messed-up. Wesley was just a jerk.

And just how stupid was Sloane supposed to be?Fox: Sloane, is he telling the truth?
Sloane: [del]Yes[/del] No.
Fox: Good.
[Assassins riddle Wesley with bullets and stomp on his corpse.]

As for Cross…The only way this super-powered assassin can think to communicate with his son is to shoot him in the shoulder? How about sending e-mail with a little fatherly advice BEFORE the Fraternity gets its bloody hands on him? “I know this sounds crazy, but if anyone ever asks you to shoot the wings off flies, run away and… this is important… don’t go back. Love, Dad.”

Loom of fate indeed. It would have been more appropriate for the Fraternity to originate with an ancient guild of proctologists.

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I actually prefered the early part, when it was mostly set-up. Once the story got going, I thought it lost a little.

agree.

Well, they were comic-booky. The butcher, good with knives. The enforcer, good with his fists. The wise old ell put-together guy. They were all caricatures, but not non-existant, and at least distinctive.

That’s what I disagree with, and what I thought was the movie’s strong suit. I think the director is a natural at choreographing action and fighting. The scene where Wesley

was walking through the factory wasting people, and catching their guns as he ran out of ammo was seriously cool not to mention lines like in the thread title, and “knives don’t run out of bullets.” I don’t think I’ve seen any of this guy’s other movies, but I feel like this is his element.

less stupid than any thing else I’d put in this movie’s genre. He’s not a super-hero, just at the end of the genetic bell curve when it comes to reflexes, vision, and muscle control.

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Another vote for Dumber than a Bag of Rocks and about as Cool as a Saharan Summer. Tries oh-so-hard that it virtually busts a gut, but I found the action boring, repetitive, and unconvincing (which is a problem when the movie continues to ask you to suspend your disbelief more and more and more as you go along). McAvoy is fine and the one “twist” helped sustain my interest a little longer, but everyone else is phoning it in and there’s absolutely nothing I saw here that wasn’t done better in a pixel-less John Woo movie. There may have been plenty of worse movies out this year, but I had the good sense to skip them, so this is the Bottom of the Barrel for 2008 thus far (and I saw Semi-Pro!).

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Boobies?

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2 seconds of Jolie ass.

I liked the movie. Thought it was very fun. Loved the scene Trunk has spoilered.

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As if all action movies aren’t at their core ‘male fantasy’ movies…

This one was particulary transparently egregious to me.

So, we start with a simpering doormat cube drone with a cartoonish fat evil boss lady, anxiety attacks, and shrewish girlfriend who’s shtupping his best bud. OK so we establish that he is a loser with a capital L O S E R.

What happens next? He’s rescued by Angelina Jolie!!! and told that he has mad assassin skilz! YAY!

It was all layed on rather thick for my tastes. I dunno, maybe I’m just growing weary of the action genre.

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See, I totally agree with this.

But, to me, it’s a question of how aware the director seems to be of what he’s doing. Maybe I can just no longer tell what’s done ironically or “meta” but it was so obvious (like you said) that I could only assume that the whole thing was done with a knowing wink. I’ll much sooner buy into a movie like that as opposed to if he was Ben Affleck in Paycheck or Keanu Reeves in Matrix.

It helped, I’m sure, that I had no idea who the star was going into this movie, and I thought he was pretty homely to start out. I liked his transformation, too. Kind of subtle at first, just walking a little taller, but eventually full-on.

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Put me down as another who would watch it again. I also loved the spoilered scenes listed above so it will be going into the DVD collection when it’s released.

Really hope it’ll have a blooper reel.

13

Hated the ending, just hated it. Up until the ending, it was a pretty good summer action flick (I have a huge girl crush on Angelina Jolie when she’s in bad ass Mrs. Smith mode). I also loved the Danny Elfman song that played over the credits and had to immediately buy it!

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What part of the ending. Because I loved it when

Jolie put the bullet through everyone’s head including her own. This was perfectly, believably set up by the story from her childhood. I was really HOPING they wouldn’t cop out and find a way to save her.

or

The set-up for killing Morgan Freeman. Which I also enjoyed. I liked how the click of his gun referenced the stapler from earlier in the movie.

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Especially the way

she tossed him the gun in such a way he couldn’t possibly catch it and have time to shoot the bullet to save her.

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[spoiler]Okay, first I hated the rat bombs. Then, I did hate the fact that Angelina offed all the other assasins and herself. I’m not quite sure why she did it. If they did indeed appear on the magical loom (and we have only the bad guy’s word they did show up) they ONLY appeared there because Morgan Freeman’s character was dicking around with the appointed names and making the assassins kill his own targets, not fate’s.

If Morgan had stayed the magical good loom fairy, the assasins’ names would never have shown up. He deserved to die, not them. If Angelina believed so much that every name from the loom had to be killed, she would have had to kill MacAvoy first to make sure he died before she did.

Plus, of course, no hottie Angelina Jolie sequel. So, meh. And rat bombs - double meh. [/spoiler]

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I hated the comic. Hated hated hated it. It came out 3+ years ago so I might be wrong on some of the details but what I remember about it is:

-It started out pretty cool/intriguing
-It was late - REALLY late - every month, and they kept putting out alternate covers to make you think the next issue was out
-The story became a jumbled mess and fell to pieces less than halfway through, and never recovered
-The last page of the last issue was a direct insult to the reader

Is the movie anything like the comic?

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Danny Elfman song. Great. Definitely won’t see it now.

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I hated the comic too. And yes, the last line fo the movie is a direct insult to the viewer.

From the get-go, i hated the movie. It’s clear to me that the director can shoot visually arresting scenes, and has an imagination thats beyond compare, but anytime people are asked to do anything other than shoot shit, forget it.

Early scenes in the office were so painful to watch; when I saw how cartoonishly grotesque Wesley’s boss was, I tuned out. She’s the absolute stereotypical hellbitch of a boss.

Wesley changes character completly overnight.

Sloane; You’re an assasin.
Wesley; I’m not! You guys have the wrong person! (pauses) Ok, I’m an assassin.

After that, hey, I’m not going to knock how cool all the action scenes were, but its all for nothing if you don’t care about the characters, and I didnt care for them one bit. Some nice touches included the train-wreck (which didnt really care much for collateral damage; pretty much everyone on the train was killed… in my mind, thats a good thing, somehow. I don’t like my action homogenised) and Morgan Freeman’s impression of Samuel L. Jackson.

2/5. No sequel required.

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It was this (“oh look at her shovel food into her hole!”) combined with the gratuitous voiceover (which just screamed “hey, it worked in Fight Club!”) that made me go “shields up” from the opening seconds.