Nothing Else Can Compare

Rating: 9/10 (29 June 2008)

Every once in a while, a movie comes along which breaks every rule set down by decades of films before it. Every era has at least one, and ever since the Matrix came along, with its seamless integration of psychedelic CG, incredible imagination, and jumbled direction that always leaves you slightly perplexed but wanting more, (an experience only slightly hindered, in my own opinion, by Keanu Reeves' acting,) we've been living in the era in which action movies strive to follow in its footsteps, (even to the point of casting Keanu Reeves, god knows why.) Now Wanted has come along that beaten path and the rules have been broken again.
If I were to describe Wanted as a rigid film connoisseur, I would probably have to give this movie a 4/10. A movie with barely any plot, direction, character development, closure, with predictable twists and uninteresting situations etc. A movie which breaks not only every film law in the book, but also the fundamental laws of physics, gravity, reality, biology, etc, etc, etc.
However, I cannot give this movie anything but a 9, because Wanted was nothing short of an astounding and awesome, and I do mean awesome, action flick I could watch every day for the rest of my life, and I doubt I would ever get bored with it. The numbness inflicted when I watched the ending sequence left me in a state of awe and wonderment I have yet to recover from. The only thing preventing me from giving this movie a perfect 10 is because it is far from perfect.
As I've already mentioned, the story is somehow both simplistic and convoluted, Wesley - the protagonist- is as shallow as the rest of the cast of characters and is occasionally annoying with his overuse of words and phrases, which thankfully deviate from most classic one-liners, the direction zig zags all over the place, and you could see every plot twist coming from a mile away, if you were paying any attention to the plot that is. But I found myself forgetting all of this because of how awesome everything else was.
And if you can go into a theatre, watch this movie, and see nothing but the problems in the above paragraph, believe me when I say that you are missing out on the cinematic experience of a lifetime.
Again, this is an era in which CG can determine the quality of an action movie, and Wanted could never have existed without the effects it uses, and while this frequently this makes movies insubstantial and weak, it's far from true in this case. This movie blew my mind, and if you can set your disbelief aside for two hours to watch it, it will probably it will do the same for you.