comment #1

Scott Mendelson says ...

Count me in...

http://scottalanmendelson.blogspot.com/2008/06/wanted-from-director-of-nightwatch-uh.html

Sorry to paste a link to my own review, but it's easier than retyping all my reasons I hated this soulless, willfully stupid, astoundingly naive crapfest.

comment #2

Mr. Blood Vessel says ...

On his way out the door, he busts his ergonomic keyboard across his best friend's mug. "Fuck these underachievers; I can kill for a living!"

he actually says that?

comment #3

The InSneider says ...

You've got to be kidding me, Gruver! How can you agree that Wanted is a 'giant step backward for cinema' when its 123,456 times better than say, Shoot Em Up or Smokin Aces, which were two truly terrible movies. McAvoy does a kick-ass job. There are some incredible action sequences and their not nearly as corny and cartoony as the ultraviolence in Shoot Em Up.

I just don't understand how any red-blooded hetero white male can't appreciate the goods Wanted has to offer, even if it's not the most original story in the world and it's far from perfect. It's at least as good as Iron Man and Hulk and probably better than both of them. Plus Jolie is hotter than Paltrow and Tyler combined. Lighten up J-Dub.

comment #4

berkguru says ...

I remember when Gruver was raving about that absolutely pathetic movie Shoot Em Up. He must have a personal relationship with someone involved in it. Wanted looks crappy but way better than that.

comment #5

K. Bowen says ...

One big thing missing from Wanted was the sense of humor that the source material must have had. How do you end up treating something like "The Loon of Fate" with a straight face?

comment #6

Aladdin Sane says ...

The trouble is Wanted isn't better than Shoot 'Em Up.
Wanted has some cool effects, but outside of James McAvoy, there aren't any characters even remotely worth investing in - maybe the 'Cross' fellow, but that's a stretch.
Shoot 'Em Up at least had the decency to wear its stupidity on its sleeve, whereas Wanted dresses its stupidity up in a slick suit and says, "Now you're meaningful."
Won't work. Glad I used a theater pass on it. Would have hated to give the filmmakers my money. It only ended a half an hour ago, but I'm trying to remember what redeeming qualities it had going for it...it had mildly entertaining action sequences, but there wasn't much going on in between. Blah. Wish I'd gone to see Wall-E. Guess that's for Sunday or something.

comment #7

K. Bowen says ...

Shoot Em Up at least had Clive Owen being great and Paul Giamatti being kinda funny. Bad, bad film, but with a couple things going for it.

Wanted, I just don't get.

comment #8

David Ehrlich says ...

um, count me in. from my blog @ web.mac.com/messierism.

a hastily written and bile-filled response to wanted.

so let's get one thing straight - i've seen two of russian filmmaker timur bekmambetov's films (the first two chapters of that "WATCH" trilogy), and i've deeply reviled both experiences. i've admired - to an extent - his experiments in employing CG to capture small moments that would be unfilmmable without the help of digital tinkering. moments like a bullet traveling through a donut... but i'm getting ahead of myself. actually, i'm not. i'm right where i should be. which is sitting in front of my computer attempting to accurately express my outright disdain for timur's latest film - WANTED - a movie i apparently hated so much that morgan freeman's stock narration in a commercial on the television behind me just caused my eyelids to twitch.

i WANTED to like this movie (HELLO, JIMMY!). i gave timur the benefit of the doubt... gave him my faith that when lifted from the restraints of a smallish budget, his imagination would be able to work small wonders in elevating our nation's increasingly stale gun-fu output. holy cunts of calabash was i wrong to have even the smallest glimmer of optimism.

i understand that it's a summer movie's prerogative to be retarded beyond all standards of intelligence - though preferably blissfully so. but from the opening text that scrawls across the screen... that hint of gravitas that reads "one thousand years ago" ... that flash of self-importance i hoped then was only an anomaly... it was obvious i was in for a bumpy ride.

i had no idea.

so the whole thing starts with a diet-fight club take on the protagonist's (james macavoy) dissatisfaction with his drone-like life in corporate america... as it would be felt and expressed by a frat-boy hopped up on red bull... and not like the chapter president or anything, but the legacy kid that does nothing but cast shame on all the other brothers. watching this film, even the lowest common denominator is going to feel pandered to and be left wondering just exactly who this shit was intended for. and when timur is using impossibly irksome visual flourishes to hammer home just how painful this very, very trite trope (trite even when the matrix did it better) is for our hero... it's already painfully obvious that timur's tactics aren't bits of whimsy, but nauseating CRUTCHES. he uses these means to convey even the most obvious and base of characterizations because he's absolutely incapable of capturing them in any other fashion.

so then there's a meet-violent with angelina jolie and the movie is off and running... for a few minutes, before it gets bogged down in the most sadistic and interminable training sequence in film history. and that's not hyperbole, that right there is some cold hard fact.

anyhoo... by that juncture WANTED is already a poor man - nay, hobo's distillation of the matrix, and it IS the matrix to a legalistically uncomfortable fault for some time... and believe you me, that's not a movie i feel any sort of need to relive. ordinary guy with existentialist bent gets informed of special destiny (in this movie the hero's lot is doled out by... wait for it... THE LOOM OF FATE. SERIOUSLY. and it is never explained beyond that), gets trained to defy physical laws by hot chick (advantage: jolie), and then becomes the most badass of them all. though in the matrix neo didn't actually turn to the camera and call the audience pathetic. twice. neo always was a charmer.

i can't in good conscience waste too many more words on this drivel... i guess the most important thing i can say is that it's NOT FUN. that's all that can be hoped for from an experience like this and it fails on that count miserably. the one mistake timur couldn't afford to make was to make his film slow... to give the viewer a chance to catch his breath and collect his thoughts... to recognize how putrid a product they were enduring... the feeling being violently mugged. and sure there are moments of visual panache that force a nod of approval or a cracked smile (a train smashing against a cliffside was tops for me)... and some of those little moments... that bullet traveling through a particular kind of donut held by a particular character was especially effective and clever... but these fleeting glimpses of true, pleasant ingenuity simply serve to reinforce via contrast how intolerable the final product turned out to be.

wanted is awful when it doesn't take itself seriously, and it is FAR worse when it turns the corner for the third act and attempts to change the lives of those unfortunate enough to have stuck around. it's the worst film i've seen this year (though i've been uncharacteristically good about avoiding the obvious dogs... things like PROM NIGHT and THE HAPPENING).

timur bekmembetov is an asshole.

comment #9

hiviper says ...

I took one look at the trailer and pegged this post-Matrix fly-wing shooting shitfest straight away. Bonus test: try sitting though Daywatch or Nightwatch without falling asleep.

comment #10

nemo says ...

"How do you end up treating something like "The Loon of Fate" with a straight face?"

That you here, Bob, on the cover? "The Duck of Death?"

Duke. It's the Duke. "Duke of Death."

Duck, I say!

comment #11

Arran says ...

Did you really have to go to AICN just to find another naysayer? There's 34 negatives on Rotten Tomatoes. Quoting an AICNer as backup makes about as much sense as...quoting one of the commenters here as backup.

comment #12

Edward says ...

Shoot Em Up was wonderfully over the top, and fun as hell. One deliciously improbable scene on top of another.

comment #13

LexG says ...

WANTED IS FUCKING EXHILERATING.

Usually MrBeaks knows his facts, but THIS MOVIE ISN'T JUST A MOVIE, IT'S GOD.

WANTED IS YOUR GOD. IT FUCKING COMMANDS YOU.

I'm going to see it six more times just this weekend alone. And I have THREE COLLEGE DEGREES and I am the MOST INTELLIGENT POSTER ON POLAND'S WACK BLOG.

The MASTERSTROKE is the FINAL NARRATION, where McAvoy TELLS THE AUDIENCE THEY ARE LOSERS WASTING THEIR BULLSHIT LIVES.

Everyone in the world needs to hear that, because EXCEPT FOR ATHLETES AND CELEBRITIES, everyone is a weak sell-out BITCH.

EMBRACE YOUR INNER SUPERIOR GOD and RECOGNIZE this MASTERPIECE.

comment #14

NickF says ...

Mr. Beaks, David Poland, their all right in ripping this movie. Even Drew McWheeny for all his faults is on the right wavelength in taking this movie to town.

comment #15

LexG says ...

WANTED OWNS YOUR ASS.

BOW TO IT. BOW.

BOW.

YOU'RE NOT BOWING.

This movie will make you SUPERIOR.

EMBRACE YOUR DESTINY.

YOU'RE INFERIOR TO THIS.

comment #16

MilkMan says ...

Wanted changed Mgmax's life. I heard he saw it twice on Friday. The first time with friends, the second time by himself. According to one of his friends, he took the movie very seriously. I asked him if i could have another Twizzler and he told me he didn't have anymore even though he was clutching at least ten ropes in his fist. After the movie we all went out to get something to eat, but not Mgmax. He said he felt emotionally drained. I felt the same way after I saw Body Parts.

comment #17

Bob Violence says ...

To folks who have seen both: Is it even worse than the comic? I'm genuinely curious about this, as an affirmative answer would require us to officially redefine the meaning of "bad."

comment #18

EDouglas says ...

I liked Shoot 'Em Up, but Wanted has a much better story, writing and acting (though SEU is deliberately cartoonish, which is fun in its own way)... but seriously, Jeff... I can respect if you and Beaks didn't like the movie but I think you should turn in your man-card for not loving it :)

Bob Violence, it's a different story/characters than the comic but the same general tone and attitude.

comment #19

breadlymoore says ...

Beaks back at AICN is hilarious. Back where he belongs...After being dumped by Collider and Chud, of course.

comment #20

Erik Childress says ...

Pardon me, Mr. Douglas - but as the film would rather cheerfully amp up a dude's erection through slow-and-fast motion violence than having its main character express any interest whatsoever in either of the two ladies - I think it's both the movie and its out-of-their-mind fans that should turn in their "man cards". ;)

comment #21

youchild says ...

I'm against Wanted, too -- http://www.fanboyplanet.com/movies/mc-wanted.php

I'll weigh in that the comic book -- yes, it's not fair to call it a graphic novel -- was better, because it worked off of a set of rules that made more sense.

In the comic, it wasn't a group of assassins. All the world's super-villains had gotten together and killed all the super-heroes, quietly taking control of everything. Cops knew to back down when a Fraternity member showed up. Wesley was heir to the powers of one of the most powerful super-villains.

Morally, at least, there was no question that even if Wesley got his revenge on his father's killer, he was still on the road to being no better than that killer. It's kind of gleefully amoral and cartoony. It's not great art, but I can see why Hollywood got attracted to the story, then gutted it.

Shoot-em-up at least established itself as an utter cartoon devoid of reality from the beginning. It was Bugs Bunny vs. Yosemite Sam.

comment #22

Jeremy Smith says ...

Breadlymoore: It is "hilarious". Straight to the bank, actually. And while I don't quite know how you get "dumped" of your own volition, I'd like to thank you for charting my progress all the same. Attention rules.

Agree with youchild. SHOOT 'EM UP was live-action Looney Tunes. It's first shot was Clive Owen chomping into a carrot. They might as well have littered the rest of the film with Carl Stalling cues.

comment #23

quitstaringatme says ...

I have no interest in seeing Wanted since I read, and disliked, the comic, and the film has supposedly dropped what few clever ideas the source material had.

But if you hated Shoot 'Em Up, than you take everything way too seriously.

comment #24

Fien Print says ...

Mr. Douglas, did you actually *read* the comic book? After the set-up, the movie is almost completely different in tone, characters and, most importantly, morality. The comic sets the moral and ethical rules of its universe very clearly. The movie does, as quitstaringatme suggested, take the few clever ideas from the book and discard them in favor of exploding rats.

Obviously they couldn't handle all of the superhero/supervillain alternate dimension stuff that the comic has, but the script goes its own way VERY early on.

And Erik, you're exactly right about the weirdness of Wesley's lack of sexuality. At least in the comic he gets to screw Fox and it's a whole thing, because she'd also been involved with his dad. It's all icky and Oedipal and interesting. Too interesting for the movie...

Oh and I'm also on the Unwanted train here...

comment #25

Spacesheik says ...

If I had any doubts about NOT wanting to see this film, that STILL shot above pretty much cemented my original shunning.

comment #26

breadlymoore says ...

"Breadlymoore: It is "hilarious". Straight to the bank, actually. And while I don't quite know how you get "dumped" of your own volition, I'd like to thank you for charting my progress all the same. Attention rules."

Charted or reminded...I don't suppose you would know the difference.

Don't get mad at me just because you can't find a site that wants you around.

comment #27

Jeremy Smith says ...

Well, keep telling yourself that if you need to believe it. Repetition is the path to delusion.