Wanted
starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann, Common and Angelina Jolie
screenplay by Michael Brandt, Derek Haas and Chris Morgan
directed by Timur Bekmanmbetov
Rating: ♦
In some ways this is an interesting film. But in many other ways it is silly and boring as hell. How could it not be? It’s another film based on a comic book - in this case a series of comic book by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones - and you know how I despise films based on comic books: Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Hulk, etc. The premise of this story is a thousand-year-old secret society of assassins secretly killing as many bad guys in the world as they can get, for the common good. Exactly why they are doing it - what evil they are trying to preserve the world from, who is deciding the targets and why is all necessarily vague. Needless to say, that kind of vigilantism doesn’t go over so well in the modern world, which is a lot more orderly than the medieval world that spawned this particular secret society, called “The Fraternity.” My point is that the premise is interesting and I think a much better story could have been made from it. Instead, we’ve got yet another film that wants to use Matrix-like special effects, and that sacrifices good story and good acting with polished whistles and bells (and a couple good looking women).