Wanted is unwanted

Rating: 4/10 (5 July 2008)

Wanted is a nonstop tour de force of preposterous scene after preposterous scene. What you get is something you would expect from a comic book movie. The only problem is, if you have't read the comic book, every far-fetched, ridiculous plot point and scene seems just that: far-fetched and ridiculous.
So what about the action scenes? The preview made it look great, right? If you like beautifully crafted action scenes, then you are in for a rock and roll time... for about 25 percent of the movie, if that. Whenever an action scene pops up, it does something exciting and fun to watch and then suddenly disappears in an instant, leaving us with our narrator and central character, Wesley, droning on and on for the next 20 or so minutes.
And what else do we get with him? Aside from a poor Chicago accent, we get a very boring, unsympathetic character who is able to accept his fate without any real believable scrutiny and somehow miraculously learns to become the best assassin ever in a matter of about two weeks or so. And don't get me started on how all of these amazing assassins all throughout the film drop like flies one after another, while none of them can compete with our hero, Wesley, who just picked up the job a short while ago. But I suppose I should concede something. I mean Wesley does have his amazing 400 heartrate that gives him adrenaline instead of a heart attack.
But wait, there's more! We also have the wonderful privilege of his incessant whining about his pathetic life; it is a style of narration extremely reminiscent of Edward Norton's character in Flight Club. I'll paraphrase for you, "I am a loser who buys IKEA furniture and who wades through life without meaning. You are a loser too. You and I are just alike. Keep watching me in all my loserness and I will keep pointing out to you in every other scene that you are a loser too." Despite not actually being a loser, I found this to be quite aggravating. I didn't pay ten bucks for a movie to be told over and over again that I am doing nothing with my life. Does Hollywood, or at least the film's writers/director really believe that because someone is at a movie that they are as big of a loser as our little character Wesley here? And the last line of the film simply sealed that annoyance for me.
But it wasn't all bad. If you like Angelina Jolie, she looks just as good in this as she has in previous shoot 'em up thrillers. Moreover, you even get to see her partially naked, so who can argue with that, right? And what about all of those awesome action scenes I mentioned? On the rare occasion they actually popped up, I admit they were indeed fun and entertaining, albeit unbelievable.
Unfortunately, I found myself in disbelief at all of the phenomenal feats they were accomplishing throughout the feature during said action scenes. Our main character, as well as others, has the unique ability to pump out an over 400 heartrate, giving them nasty abilities like jumping tall buildings in a single bound and slowing down time and most of all the uncanny ability to curve the angle of bullets as they are fired.
Now I am not one without an ability to suspend disbelief. Shooting wings off the fly? Sure. Curving a bullet as its fired so it can slightly bend around an object and hit something behind it? Sure, why not? But when it comes right down to it when you have a single bullet fired from a gun and it curves around a 360 degree angle blowing through 9 different skulls of the most prominent assassins in the world and the bullet flies in a perfect circle killing everyone with no ducking or anything? Sorry. Angelina who fired this bullet is just human. And bullets just don't do that.
And in the end, or more specifically about halfway through the preposterousness that is this film, all I wanted was for one of those bullets to fire off, curve its way through the movie screen, and just end the torture.