WANTED, 2008
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WANTED MOVIE POSTER
WANTED, 2008
Movie Review

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov
Starring by James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman
Review by Eli Manning

SYNOPSIS:

"Wanted" tells the tale of one apathetic nobody's transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice.

REVIEW:

There will be many comparisons with this film and The Matrix because of their overall philosophies and directorial designs. And when you're watching the film you can't help but feel about that.

Wanted is a story about your basic average guy who is taken into an underground world and is told he is "the one". Then the guy must figure out who he really in order to take part in a rigorous Rocky style training session so he can defeat the man who was once part of the organization that betrayed them.

If you've seen the animation film Kung Fu Panda, it's really the same story. So I guess I'll call Wanted the film where The Matrix meets the Kung Fu Panda.

But there is a twist at the end of the 2nd act so this film can't be looked upon as a blatant ripoff. And the summer of 2008 movie season will be looked at in future years as 'the plot twist' year, as every other film seems to have it.

There are many good things about this film. Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, making his first English/U.S. film is a man who knows how to direct action sequences. As soon as you think you've seen it all: car chases, climatic showdowns between the hero and the villain, gun fights etc..., comes a new director to show us some new cool moves with the camera and lighting. You can't help but be completely entertained.

No matter though, you need to give us some characters for us to care about. James McAvoy, playing the main character Wesley, is a solid actor who is trying to push the story with the material he has. His character though is just too much of a cliche. There's a lot of time in this story to get to know this guy, but we really don't need it because we do know him! This is a character that represents most of the people seeing this film. There isn't much to say.

What fails in this film is that we really don't get to know much about this "Fraternity" organization that Wesley joins. The two main forces of this assassin club are Fox and Sloan, played by Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. Two of the best actors working in Hollywood today. But the problem for the director and screenwriters is the line of how much dialogue to give these actors because they both tell so much on their faces. I'm sure many a screenwriter has cut down at least 50% of their dialogue when either of these two actors sign on to their film. A closeup tells us 1000 things with these actors that no dialogue is needed. But there's a problem with this. The only time they talk is to give the audience some exposition to further the plot. We really don't know what makes them tick except that they are people you don't want to mess with. What kind of mentality do you need to be these types of people? That's what I was interested in knowing about people that's what's really interesting. If you know that, then the rest of the film and it's action scenes have context to it and you're more excited.

This is a film that does entertains you, which is great. But I guess my line when recommending a film is that a film must stay with you after a while when it's over. With Wanted, I moved on with my life about 90 seconds after the credits rolled. And this film had the potential to be a great film. But now it's just one of those action movies that will be in the DVD box at Wallmart selling for $6 in five years.