Wanted is fun as an action feature, but beyond that it doesn’t offer much more in terms of cerebral entertainment. However, I don’t think Russian helmer Timur Bekmambetov was really shooting for anything more than an effects driven film and in those terms he succeeds with a moderate amount of the absurd tossed in for good measure. The film serves as a perfect distraction, but I can’t see it as an option to put in the player when you are looking for a real cinematic experience seeing how it doesn’t have enough to it to keep the mind occupied outside of the initial viewing.
In theaters I was wholly intrigued by the effects, the idea of an underground group of assassins (known as The Fraternity) and the fact that the one thing this movie does best is set the audience up for what could be a phenomenal franchise should they completely abandon the idea of the Loom of Fate. Sorry, the whole weavers angle and textile factory front is just too silly to take all that seriously. McAvoy as Wesley, the everyman turned assassin, is a perfect chance to give audiences the opportunity to connect to an action hero that is not the stereotypical tough guy, as McAvoy says in the special features, “I would rather eat dog poop than go to a gym.” Mmmm, tasty.
Wanted does a fantastic job of setting Wesley up as a character that can make a name for himself in the world of underground assassins and with $134 million at the box-office on a $75 million budget I can’t imagine Universal is going to abandon him just as he gets interesting. The only question is whether or not the Angelina Jolie factor played a big part in audience attendance considering McAvoy’s turns as a fawn in Narnia and alleged sex offender in Atonement brought in the fanboys. The curving bullets and Jolie’s bosom and pouty lips had to be a major selling point. While I actually like Jolie in the throwaway role of Fox, the Fraternity’s token female, I don’t particularly like how they used her simply as a marketing tool when her role is so limited. As you will see in the animated comic comparisons to Mark Miller’s graphic novel, Fox was actually an African American and I think it is mildly insulting in the “Cast and Characters” featurette to say Jolie was the best choice to fill Fox’s shoes. Yeah, she’s the best choice if you only make a list of one person and her name is written down first.
No matter how limited Jolie’s performance was it is nice to hear her bring some honesty to the table when she says, “I just did a very serious film, had a baby and wanted to get back in shape.” She wraps it up saying she just wanted to have some fun and that is perhaps the best thing Jolie brings to her performances, she tends to enjoy the work and never seems to allow her celebrity to get too big for a role such as Fox, a role most Oscar-winning actresses would not turn to in the midst of working with Clint Eastwood and roles such as hers in A Mighty Heart. I can respect that and hope we get a lot more of it.
Continuing on the feature-beat, the previously mentioned “Cast and Characters” feature runs a bloated 20 minutes and is just about as generic as it gets with its length being the only thing out of the ordinary as the cast and crew sit back and explain the film and the characters they play. Boring, I already knew it all after watching the film.
You move on from there to an alternate opening, which, while cool and shows the early stages of the Fraternity, it is rather obvious why it was dropped considering it is so drastically different from the film on a whole. So much so that it never would have felt like it fit the rest of the narrative outside of a possible flashback when Sloan (Morgan Freeman) is explaining the Fraternity’s origins to Wesley. There is also an extended look at the first moment when Wesley is introduced to the Gunsmith (Common) and their use of dead bodies for target practice. Bleh, not too great, but it’s there if you are interested.
From there it moves into the features you would expect, this includes a look at the special effects, a mildly redundant look at the visual effects, a peek at adapting Mark Millar’s original graphic novel and turning it into a film and a final feature called “Through the Eyes of Timur Bekmambetov”. Each of these run around 8-9 minutes long and in the final one looking at Bekmambetov just when you think you are going to get something good it comes up empty as the majority of these hastily put together features do. Morgan Freeman says, “[Timur’s] approach to filmmaking is completely out of the ordinary… the stuff he is doing you haven’t seen before.” Beyond that we get no additional information as to what is so “out of the ordinary” as compared to what we have “seen before.” Thanks, really intriguing glad you tossed a bunch of descriptors at me without any actual examples.
The best, and really the only, way to watch the features for Wanted is to flip on the all-encompassing Blu-ray exclusive in-movie U-Control feature which includes a picture-in-picture behind-the-scenes look at a variety of details (for instance Jolie’s character’s tats) and a variety of “Motion Comics” featuring scenes from Millar’s novel in line with the scenes from the film they mirror. The U-Control also includes an “Assassins Profiles” feature which does more than just give details on the characters as it includes GPS tracking for scenes such as the early car chase as it shows the route taken in downtown Chicago and weapon profiles such as details on the guns including the number of rounds each uses, their range (3,000 meters?), ammo used and accuracy (100%?).
However, my favorite of the U-Control bunch are the four instances of the Scene Explorer, which features a variety of ways of looking at the creation of each scene including animatics, storyboards and, my favorite,
the green screen pre effects look. Warner Bros. had a feature on the HD DVD for 300 (not sure if it was on the Blu-ray) showing the entire film without any digital effects and only the green screen look and I think it is far better to look at a film this way then get any kind of generic mumbo jumbo on how a computer did this or that to make something look cool and in the case of Wanted it is equally fun to watch. Strip it down and give me the guts, let me do the comparing. It’s a fun watch.
The only other feature I have yet to mention is The Making of “Wanted: The Game”, which I didn’t watch since I couldn’t care less about it. However, as you are watching the Blu-ray it appears there are a few codes offered up that you can enter in the game (if you own it) and get some special features unlocked.
As is usually the case, I recommend renting this before buying it, especially in these economic times. While I imagine the majority of people will enjoy this the first time around I also have a feeling the absurd nature may many to not want to see it again and simply leave it as a one-time watch. I understand this and I can only see myself returning to it late at night when my brain is officially turned off and I don’t want to switch it back on. Currently The Mummy franchise occupies that portion of my catalog so it isn’t all that bad adding another title to the fray.
