At least two serious flaws, without which it would have been a much better movie

Rating: 8/10 (3 August 2008)

Wanted is partly based on a comic book, and let me tell you about the comic. It's a far out, foul language and generally butt-awful sci-fi/superhero thing with multiple dimensions and aliens in it. And costumed villains who have defeated all the heroes. The Fraternity are total bad guys, killers and rapists. Apathy prevails. And there ain't no loom.
The movie, therefore, while not great, is a vast improvement over the misanthropic comic. They introduced the Loom of Fortune in order to turn the Fraternity into a sort of good guys, who only kill people who would go on to cause death and disaster if they were allowed to live. Coupled with a preternatural ability to curve bullets and maneuver cars and other equipment, this is actually a neat action concept. The Loom is supernatural and perhaps an act of God, but if you accept that it is, in some uncanny way, always right, then the basic premise is not bad. With well-directed action scenes, this could be turned into a really cool franchise.
Or perhaps the correct wording is "could have been", because they already messed it up in the first movie. Two basic plot elements served to ruin this movie, dragging it down from something quite cool to something totally mediocre:
1. The beatings. As in the comics, our movie protagonist had to undergo severe beatings in order to become part of the Fraternity. Now, this may be believable (though still deeply repulsive) if the Fraternity are total bad guys, as in the comic, but it makes ZERO SENSE when the Fraternity, as in the movie, are GOOD guys! None whatsoever. And it's all the more disgusting for being so meaningless.
2. The fact that Sloan turns out to be a bad guy. It's bad enough that it's awfully cliché to have the guy at the top be corrupt. But what's worse is it violates the whole principle of the Loom of Fortune. If Sloan were destined to go bad, then the loom should have ordered his assassination before he ever became leader of the Fraternity!! If the Loom is always right, then it can't make these kinds of mistakes. It doesn't make sense.
A third and more minor complaint is that the trailer showed our protagonist and Angelina Jolie's character getting together, with a piece of dialog where Jolie's character says "Do you want to?". That part has however been completely excised from the movie. When is Hollywood getting its act together with trailers? What the hell is the sense of including bits that aren't in the final movie? Harumph!
Still, it's a quite entertaining movie, the plot of which actually works most of the time.
8 out of 10.