Interesting movie, but not the comic.

Rating: 7/10 (5 July 2008)

This is a difficult movie to review. It's based on a comic of the same name. If you liked the comic, then you can forget the movie. The movie shares almost nothing in common with the book. Only the title, The Fraternity, Fox, Wesley and the initial opening of the comic are in tact. Oh, and even though the names are there, the characters are nothing like the comic book counterparts. It's like making "Spiderman" only he wears no costume and doesn't have spider powers. Fox in the comic (AJ's character) looks pretty cool and wears an orange costume similar to Catwoman, but she is African-American with short hair. Now AJ in my opinion is a good actress and I think she's pretty attractive. But she looks nothing like the comic book Fox.
So if you read any reviews on IMDb that say this movie sucks because it's not like the source material, then you can believe them. However, for this reviewer, having read the comic, I am glad for that reason. The comic book was about scumbags who rape, murder, kill and swear as if it was a day job. The ending of the book goes so far as to insult the reader and thus serving no purpose in the story other than to say that guys like the people who post on this site, are stupid and meaningless. Now the point of the comic may be to get us off our butts and do something with our lives, and that is a good point to make! I am a writer and make my own movies. I'm sure a lot of you guys are too, and like you all, I try to make what I can, and maybe something will happen in the future. I don't think my day job (just as crappy as the one in the movie) should judge who I am as a person. Now that I got that off my chest, on to the movie.
If you accept the movie on it's own terms, you will enjoy it. Bending bullets, jumping off buildings etc, are all fine. I like fake action movies, they are entertaining and serve their purpose. The main complaint about this movie is the how the targets are chosen. But it doesn't really matter because how do you judge who lives and who dies? The fact is, is that Fox believes in their theory of fate choosing and believes in it so much that she makes a powerful decision in the end of the film.
If that ending didn't occur, you could throw out the entire film, because the characters didn't buy it, so why should I? But because AJ makes the choice, she proves she does believe her version of "fate", so the audience has to at least understand why she did what she did. Saying things like, I don't believe this could happen, etc etc, is just foolish.
It's a movie. Movies are fake, but the should serve one of two purposes. 1  to entertain us from our crappy jobs, where we cant tell the boss to F-off cause we have to support our families, or 2  to make us think about our lives, religion, society, history, our place in the universe etc. Wanted entertained me and for a few moments I did think about my crappy job and thought, maybe I could do something better and still support my family.
Since Wesley is the protagonist, we identify with him and want him to succeed. Some say the movie is predictable. Well name me one action movie that's not? Now, don't email me telling which movies are not (I own 1900 dvds, original ones, not burned) and I know every action movie out there. But to say it's predictable is to say that I knew Batman would win in the end. Like come on, that's what genre pictures do. The deliver a formula which is sure to please and the better ones (like this movie) throw a bit of thought and excitement in too. Give it a chance.