On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 24/31 |
Les Winan |
A lot of fun if a bit too stylized. A capable and relatively faithful (at least in spirit) adaptation. Ultimately full of sound and fury signifying nothing. |
| 42/43 |
Kim Hollis |
Grim, nihilistic and predictable. I have not been able to understand any of the love this movie has received. |
| 80/98 |
David Mumpower |
Quite possibly the most misogynistic, hateful movie of the 2000s. Anyone who enjoyed this film needs court supervision. |
| 133/196 |
Max Braden |
The lousy mystic combination of The Matrix plus Star Wars makes the midichlorians sound like decent exposition. I can't wait for the dvd so I can zoom in on Jolie's backside! |
Sure, we’ve all been there. You’re a worthless grunt working in a cube farm. Nobody cares if you live or die. Your life couldn’t get any duller. Then, you get approached one day by someone who informs you that you should be out killing people and performing various other selfish, felonious acts. You try it out and sure enough, you have the gift. You never miss whenever you aim and your talent to beat bitches down is unfailing. You also find out that you come by this talent naturally, genetically even. Your father had the same gifts. You hadn’t realized this, because you had been raised by your mother. That hippy chick was all about peace and love without even giving you the benefit of dope. It turns out she wanted you to stay away from violence for fear of any such act triggering your gift. It’s all her fault, too. She was, after all, the one who slept with a supervillain.
Yeah, that’s the thing. Pops was a supervillain. It turns out that you are living in a dystopian world created by other bad guys such as him. Way back a couple of decades ago, they all pooled their resources together to wipe out the heroes of the world. Once this was done and all the good guys were dead, the conquering heels recreated the world in their image, making themselves the shadowy rulers, unbeknownst to mainstream society. Even the ruling governments have no idea that they are just puppets on strings, manipulated by the hands of their evil overlords. The system is nefariously perfect.
Of course, you don’t care about any of that. You are far, far too selfish to care about the politics of anything except maybe dancing and mmm, feeling good. What matters to you is what helps your cause, and Daddy’s Little Secret does just this. Before you know it, you have been shuttled off to a new job. Your liaison, The Fox, tells you all about your father, colloquially known as The Killer (how creative). She goes on to offer you an invite to an exclusive new club, the Fraternity (seriously, are these names taken straight from Generics R Us?). You have been given the keys to the executive washroom. Sure, you have to be dehumanized and desensitized to violence first before becoming a card carrying member, but this is to be expected. Keep in mind that you are now a supervillain in training.
Once you have completed your training and taken your father’s rightful place as one of the conquering masters of this planet, all that is left for you to do is stay out of trouble. For instance, you probably should not piss off Mister Rictus. As one of the five primary leaders of your evil organization, he is not one to be trifled with. Sure, he does have that pesky obsession with making the world aware that the Fraternity rules them all, but he’ll get over that. If he doesn’t, you’ll probably wind up having to duel him to the death at some point down the road. Eh, worry about it later. For now, get revenge on your best friend for sleeping with your girl, make yourself rich and have as much hedonistic sex as possible. You’re young and borderline omnipotent. You might as well enjoy it.
The above accurately describes Wanted the comic book. Wanted the movie will have some obvious differentiations, but it is our understanding that the basics remain the same. Make no mistake on the point. This is a dark and twisted tale. Wanted’s creator, Mark Millar, is downright gleeful about the fact that his work is the anti-Spider Man. For a good guy, with great power comes great responsibility. For a bad guy, with great power comes a ton of cool stuff that you can take and nobody can stop you from taking. With James McAvoy in the lead, Angelina Jolie onboard as The Fox, and Morgan Freeman portraying Sloan, the leads in this film are impeccable. Also noteworthy is the fact that Night Watch director Timur Bekmambetov (Timmy B to his friends) is helming this project. Anyone who has seen that movie knows that he is not a “Good guy saves the day and wins the girl” type of moviemaker. Wanted should have a killer opening weekend due to its white hot trailers, but the tone of this movie may wind up making The Dark Knight look like Mary Poppins. (David Mumpower/BOP)
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