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REVIEW: Heavily armed 'Wanted' is pulp, not high art

By Tad Paulson

"Guns, guns, guns!" – Robocop

"You know what I do when I get [stressed] like that?... I fire a gun." – American Beauty

The end of June 2008 has shaped up to be the best PR month in quite awhile for guns. On the one hand, you've got the landmark U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 ruling overturning the 32-year-old ban on handguns in Washington D.C, a victory for gun rights enthusiasts nationwide. On the other, you've got "Wanted," a new action-thriller that is basically a orgiastic, frenzied exultation of guns and the very bad, very noisy things they do.

If you're not into guns, or Angelina Jolie holding a gun, or slow-motion shots of bullets erupting from foreheads, or basically anything else involving the discharge of firearms or Jolie's tattoos, then "Wanted" is not the best bet for you (go to "Wall-E" instead and get your intergalactic robot nookie fix). If, however, you're in the mood for a big bloody triple-stack cheeseburger of a summer movie – the kind that spurts R-rated special sauce and condiments on your chinos in its eagerness to please – then you've already drooled over the commercials for this picture and you're not interested in a tender cinematic experience. You won't be disappointed.

At the outset of "Wanted," hero Wesley Gibson ("Atonement"'s James McAvoy) is an apathetic corporate drone in the mold of "The Matrix"'s Neo and Fight Club's Tyler Durden. His girlfriend cheats on him, his shrill boss denigrates him, his self-Googling produces zero results, he gets panic attacks --- even ATMs think he's pathetic.

Meanwhile, in a spectacular sequence that sets the kinetic, reality-bending, gory tone for the rest of this film, an ancient society of superhuman-ish assassins called "The Fraternity" sees two of its lead killers engage in a rooftop battle involving crashing windows, bullet-time impacts, and a climactic headshot. The victor is Cross (Thomas Kretschmann), on a mission to destroy his former clubmates. The victim is Wesley Gibson's long-lost father, and he's left his loser son a hefty genetic inheritance: those panic attacks Wesley's having aren't panic attacks, they're his latent mega-assassin superpowers, bursting at the seams to emerge.

Fraternity leader Sloan (Morgan Freeman) dispatches acolyte Fox (Jolie) to retrieve young Wesley from the grips of Cross. Faced with the choice between his sad-arsed life (i.e. the blue pill) and a thrilling, jetsetting career as a righteous assassin (i.e. the red pill), guess which path our protagonist chooses? Duh. Here's a clue – BANG! After the obligatory wax-on/wax-off training sequences where Wesley learns to perfect his combat skills and "curve bullets" under the close tutelage (and beatings) of Fox and other Fraternity members, he's off to chase down Cross and avenge his father.

The enduring message? It's better to burn out in a hail of gunfire than to fade away in corporate, romantic, and spiritual ennui. Self-actualization and spiritual liberation lie in finding your inner Dirty Harry and leaping, pistols ablaze, onto the hollow-pointed, armor-piercing chariot of the automatic weapon gods.

"Wanted" is the American debut of Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, who fine-tuned his chops on the stylish, operatic supernatural flicks "Night Watch" and "Day Watch" (and the forthcoming trilogy-completing "Dusk Watch"), which are worthy of your DVD-renting attention. Bekmambetov seems to understand intrinsically the material he's dealing with here (which is based loosely on a sardonic graphic novel series by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones), and he keeps a light touch throughout, focusing (correctly) on the slick action sequences and remarkable visual effects over byzantine plot or character arcs.

Given the fine cast, the performances are surprisingly dialed-in and by-the-numbers, but who cares? This is pulp, not high art. McAvoy, who demonstrated such depth and promise in "Atonement" and "The Last King of Scotland," furthers his screen cred as the everyman who's really good with a gun, appropriately nerdy and heroic where needed. Jolie is stone-cold Zen in her scenes, channeling her inner Trinity, projecting an exotic yet impenetrable sexuality (perhaps imagining her cinematic foes as paparazzi trying to snap pics of her impending SuperTwins). Morgan Freeman is the most visibly detached from his surroundings, delivering his lines from a derelict spacestation commode somewhere on Pluto. Outboard motors have given better screen performances (not that Freeman is playing Doctor Zhivago here or anything).

Reviews of "Wanted" have been largely positive, but a small cabal of dissenters have complained that its message of male empowerment through excessive aggression is misguided, even reprehensible. Why peel that onion? Why even walk into this picture with any sort of expectation of a coherent, adherable, laudable moral about the modern, emasculated corporate male identity? That's like enlisting with the Marines to hone your flower-pressing skills. You want pabulum soup for your desiccated sold-soul? You looking for something cockle-warming along the lines of "Way of the Peaceful Warrior"? Go buy a puppy, eat a salad, read some Deepak Chopra – stay out of this movie's way.

"Wanted" is playing at Sycamore Mall in Iowa City, Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville, both the Wynnsong 12 and Galaxy 16 theaters in Cedar Rapids.