Way Cool!

Rating: 8/10 (21 June 2008)

"Shoot this MothaF**ka!" a catchy line said by Morgan Freeman's character is going to go down in history as one of the most memorable taglines in the history cinema, up there in the same level as 'Say Hello to My Little Friend'. WANTED is as ridiculous as it is awesome. The concept is so far fetched, and yet the visual effects are very well done, you won't mind seeing those curving bullets some more. It is a high octane, eye candy, entertaining action flick.
Based on a graphic novel I've never read, so I can't really do a comparison, but seeing that it's got plenty of silly, off the wall sequences, I can imagine that something like this could only exist from the vision a graphic novelist's creative mind. A bullet crashes in a head on collision with another bullet that kinda stuff will leave you saying, "Come on, Get the F outta here!" But the truth is WANTED doesn't care about people who think too much, this is a movie for those of us who choose not to over-analyze it and insteadwe need to just let the movie show us what it's got, for everything that it can offer.
The storyline is decent at times, it's very predictable. But that's no surprise, in fact besides the curving bullet dealI don't think it's completely an original thing. I think they're right when they say that WANTED is like Matrix on Steroids> And thenThere's a part where James McAvoy's character jumps into a window of a warehouse and starts killing everybody, that reminds me of Christian Bale in a scene from the movie Equilibrium.
You gotta hand it to 'em thoughCinematographer Mitchell Amundsen and Director Timur Bekmambetov have made the movie look as thrilling as possible. Danny Elfman's upbeat, catchy, original score does help a lot in getting our mood into the adrenaline rush. And I think every action movie fan everywhere will not get disappointed, some might just say it's all right but I doubt that many would say it's a failure.
My friend who watched the movie with me, Screener Yara made a very good point, concerning the underlining theme. Despite the strong violence and the slo mo bullet time, it does to a certain extent has a lesson to learn. Why do we live day by day being bored and miserable when we know we have the talents to be and do so much more.
Angelina Jolie in this movie is more of a supporting role. She doesn't get much line to say, her presence is more for looks so that the movie would have one badass killer with killer looks. James McAvoy is excellent at playing a guy who's scared Sh**less. Morgan Freeman has played a bad guy before (Lucky Number Slevin) so it's good to see him not playing a good guy again. He'll have that cold stare like something bad is about to happen if you keep eye-balling him.
We're not saying you should go out there and start learning how to become an assassin. The point is, if you have what it takes to speak your mind and do something you know you're destined to do but you choose to get stuck being pushed around because you can't stand up for yourself, that's just as pathetic as not doing anything at all. What have you done today? And if it's the same thing you did yesterday and the same thing you'll do tomorrow,.. then there's definitely something wrong with the picture