Stylized violence meets nerdy white boy dreams

Rating: 5/10 (1 July 2008)

The Matrix was a great movie. Why? Because it had a premise we could buy into. Yes it also had a nerdy white boy, but his transformation was to be a sign of a new world to come, now I take no responsibility for the mess that was made of the sequels, but the original was fun. I bring up the Matrix because I also blame that movie for the long litany of movies that came after glorifying violence in ways that make most your people numb and the rest of us just sick. Wanted is another one of those movies. It wants to be taken seriously and yet it gives too simplistic an explanation for what Wesley(James McAvoy) does. For a while I thought that it was going to dwell deeper but then of course the filmmakers pull back and revert again to stylized violence. So to every nerdy white boy who sees this movie and thinks all he needs is his own brand of assassin training, a big gun, some special bullets that shots around things from long distances and I can be in control,treating everyone that I feel wronged me. I say maybe you need to ask yourself that question they kept asking Wesley. Too bad he couldn't figure out a better, more productive answer.