A fun actioner that suffers from being a Fight Club wanna-be

Rating: 7/10 (27 June 2008)

Wanted WANTED to be Fight Club with guns. It WANTED to be The Matrix, without the actual Matrix. It WANTED to be Mr. & Mrs. Smith: The Single Years
But try as it might, it's not quite on par with those films. It has cool action, and plenty of it. The story is interesting enough as well. But when it tries to have some sort of message, that's where it stumbles.
From the very beginning, its Fight Club envy shows - the self-loathing of the humdrum, meaningless, comfortable life; the narration that is remarkably similar both in content and tone; the sudden appearance of a stranger who can break you free of this mediocrity and let you truly live through pain and violence... From there the story kicks into gear, and is quite enjoyable. It's just that first 10 minutes (and a snippet at the end) that are trying too hard to make the movie something it is not and be a social commentary.
The director has a flare for staging some crazy action, and creates some amazing visuals. Unfortunately, the movie, entertaining as it may be, is much emptier than than the film I suspect he thought it was. It's a case of style over substance, though not to the extent of, say, 300 - another movie that was great fun and had extraordinary visuals, but was light on substance.
What it is, is exactly what the trailers sold it as: a great over-the-top suspend-your-disbelief actioner in the spirit of things like Transporter and Crank. Leave your brain at the door and just enjoy it.