My shamefully late but better-than-never review.

Recently the comic ladies and I put together a list of our favorite comics from 2008. One of the categories was Comic Movies, and one of VirtualGirl’s picks was the adaptation of Top Cow’s Wanted. Regretably, I hadn’t seen the film, but figured I better get crackin’. So I finally got around to watching Wanted, based on the Top Cow graphic novel by writer Mark Millar and artist J. G. Jones.  I haven’t read the comic either, but I am a big Millar fan. Well, I’m going to have to pick up the dvd along with the movie, because for the most part I loved it.

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, Wanted is an extremely action-packed adrenaline fest—quite literally. James McAvoy plays the main character, Wesley Gibson. The film begins with a set-up and theme very similar to Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, which focuses on a scrawny push-over whose life revolves around his mundane cubicle existence and an affinity for material possessions. I’ve heard this complaint with Wanted before; however, it’s important to note that while roughly the first twenty minutes might be the weakest part of the film, it quickly evolves and becomes its own creation.

Rescued from his office-centered life by Fox (Angelina Jolie), Gibson unexpectedly finds himself in the middle of a gunfight and car race between Fox and Cross (Thomas Kretschmann), whom Fox tells him killed his father—a top-notch assassin for the Fraternity. Before this, the movie doesn’t impress so well. I especially hated the incorporation of the Nine Inch Nails song, “Every Day Is Exactly the Same”—and they’re one of my favorite bands! While I don’t pretend to know anything about the music selection process for movies, I do know a little bit about how art comes together.  Unfortunately, the lyrics of the song fit the mood and story in the beginning a little too perfectly, so it pretty much sounds like they’re beating into you what you already gathered. Thankfully, once the movie picks up it only gathers speed, and the rest of the soundtrack is fantastic.

Anyway, after Gibson is through being a sometimes overly-convincing wuss, he decides to start taking back control of his life by joining the Fraternity of Assassins. But being an assassin with super-adrenaline powers—which, most notably, allow him to manipulate his interaction with time and bend bullets—isn’t as easy as he thinks, and his arrogance is almost immediately rewarded with a heavy dose of reality. Once Gibson starts to better understand his role, however, he eases into his full skill set much like Neo does in The Matrix once he is in-tune with the Matrix (“there is no spoon” and all that).

The movie is a blast to see unfold, and while some may profess the action to be unlikably over-the-top, I think it only heightens the story. I have some minor issues with the acting, though. This wasn’t my favorite portrayal by Morgan Freeman—who plays the character Sloan, head of the Fraternity—to say the least. For the short length of time that he was actually in the film, it was stoic and uninteresting. In the beginning McAvoy is a little annoying, but when he moves into his adrenaline-fueled, confident nature, it’s just a pleasure to watch him on-screen. There are some pretty funny moments, too, and something happens near the end of the movie—before the big reveal—that just made me keep thinking, incredulously, “Oh, no they won’t!” Needless to say, they did, and it was a ton of fun. And I don’t know how close the film is to the GN, but from what I’ve heard a lot of the shots are close to the original panels.

Wanted might not be without its flaws, but it’s definitely worth watching. It’s not a superhero film, so you don’t have to be a comic book fan to enjoy it, either. Is it rewatchable? I’d say so. Go check it out if you haven’t already! I’m glad I did.

Originally posted on What Is Techno Again?