Hunter Stephenson’s Movie Review: Wanted
The following review contains very minor spoilers.
Not unlike applying an exact birth date to new slang, it’s difficult to gauge whether director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch) has invented a new language for the modern action film with Wanted. We’ve reached a point where today’s actioners are required to wear moon shoes—films like Wanted and Crank aspire to both hat-tip and one-up the Wachowski brothers’ hyperactive stylings (sans the techno white dreadlocks and Columbine coats), all the while hopping on and off the latest trends in video games, technology and comic book movies like coked-out mosquitoes.
Of course, Wanted itself is based on a comic book miniseries by Mark Millar—some fanboys would say the film merely uses the comics for TP—but the movie feels like a cultural genre gangbang where basic movie logic not only no longer applies, it’s laughed at under a calm hipster veneer for being old school.
Wanted takes the “enlightened chosen one” storyline of Unbreakable, ditches most of the ethic recoil, remolds the central hero as a sleepy, tech-literate 20something (note: resembling today’s bloggers) and posits him in a Grand Theft Auto urban fantasia with endless ammo, life, freedom and a doting, hushed Angelina Jolie at his side. Before he learns the way of the gun/Jolie, our aforementioned hero, Wesley Gibson, played by James McAvoy (Atonement), drifts though a cubicle-strewn life and can’t bother caring that his GF is getting dogged by his BFF on his IKEA table (shades of Fight Club) on the regular. But that’s before Gibson finds out that he can bend bullets (how trendy!); he’s also one of the world’s elite natural born killer-slash-assassins. The movie’s two lessons: 1) not trying too hard is vital to coming off cool and 2) hot doting girls are that much hotter when they rarely speak.
What many viewers will find equally charming and lazy about the flick is how completely over-it it is in terms of making sense. When our mortal (super)hero should be smushed into liquid bits after being caught in the nightmarish destruction of a train, he’s merely stirred. Of course Gibson can’t die in this scenario, the superhero in a movie never does. But Wanted defenestrates any and all rule-books when it comes to placing an action hero in genuine jeopardy. Jeopardy is overrated according to this film, even for a mortal assassin partying in fantasy land. And you’ll like it!
When John McClane cut up his feet in Die Hard and puffed on a final cig as he told Al to get a message to his kids and wife, you knew he wouldn’t die, but damn, it looked like his was felled. That was the standard action hero protocol for years. Here, when Gibson smashes his body atop a train hard enough to kill him on impact, he merely wakes up to find himself inexplicably soaking in a magical bath tub, already back to 98% health. These numerous sauna recoveries serve as geek intermissions between the film’s grandiose stunts. They’re a locker room of sorts for a weightless blockbuster. And when they’re over, Gibson and his newfound Fraternity of killers quickly go back to: shooting people, knifing and being knifed, practicing kills on elderly corpses, blowing up rats, and having a blast. And then bathing some more.
This is the R-rated, vicarious, hedonistic action film of summer 2008. It’s ultimately too pleased with its laissez-faire M.O.—that’s why the rah-rah Ferris Bueller-ish ending is fitting and yet underwhelming BS—but the lavish budget, high production values and the director’s cavalier disposal of genre tropes win out against better judgment, sort of like R. Kelly in court. Bekmambetov proposes that Americans are permanently tired of the chalk board exposition prominent in these types of films, and his picture trades out smart, meaningful dialogue and passable explanation for hipper-than-thou crowd pleasing. if you’re concerned with canon, the Fraternity’s mythology, character backgrounds, Bekmambetov leaves bread crumbs lying around.
Not only has Wanted ta-ta’d the rules for action, but it’s reinforced a new type of action star. When doing press on The Daily Show and Craig Ferguson, McAvoy (Atonement) has appeared humorously apologetic and surprised that his film doesn’t play like a $10 shrug burn—a movie experience he’s clearly familiar with as a viewer. This type of actor is to action what the man-child was to comedy two years ago. Unlike Jason Statham, who is cut from a grizzly ’80s cloth, McAvoy plays this role like a post-ironic Mario. I hope Hayden Christensen gets whacked and McAvoy takes his place because his indifference is ours, not the cause of it. And his spin/PR act is warranted. He’s a smart lead in a film where God, some divine power or something orders out random hits on people using a weaving apparatus called a loom. It’s so random, it’s liked getting slapped with a cartoon fish. There are even Pai Mei-wannabe training sequences using the mysterious loom with McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Jolie that would draw a dumb blank in Dirty Dancing or The Karate Kid. Not very badass.
Right when your mind starts telling you, “This scene makes me think of Gone in Sixty Seconds,” the film takes a sharp turn, leaves you welcomely disoriented and drops a successful twist/stunt in your lap. Cars flip and shimmer in the air with rockstar finesse and execution, as if caught in the invisible hands of a precocious six-year-old, and the film is not afraid to repeat such stunts, or bad one-liners like “I’m sorry,” for the pure goofy hell of it. Hey, it works. The violence is graphic, plentiful and lends the film a much needed subversiveness to level out the taffy sensibility. As Gibson’s mentor, Fox, Angelina Jolie has chosen to keep her dialogue at a coy minimum, and in this R-rated sandbox where anything can happen, she utilizes the silence to emphasize wild sex and lust that’s not there with her student. This is easily her choicest role in my opinion. She’s finally iconic on screen. She’s like Christina Lindberg in They Call Her One-Eye if those years of degradation and abuse never happened but the character still possessed a refined palette for mayhem (and bad tattoos).
Wanted banked $50 million this weekend, we can once again wonder where—not so much the comic book movie—but the action genre goes from here. Obviously, a sequel to Wanted is happening. And in post-post-Matrix worlds like Wanted’s where snipers can blow out the brains of marks from across an entire city, using tribal-etched, bending bullets like messenger pigeons (god, that sounds like it would be lame on film), we can expect more plots, characters and stunts that treat the adrenal gland like mystery meat in films that will more likely than not belong in a loony used DVD bin. John Woo goes big budget, R-rated Mouse Hunt for a subgenre, one fathered by The Transporter. To answer the film’s rhetorical “What the fuck have you done today?” line, I haven’t done much, but Timur Bekmambetov just let a lucrative cat out of the bag where any 20something character with a gun is Superman with a magic bathtub (don’t ask questions viewers), and right now the potential for exploiting this free-for-all style is breeding inside the heads of movie execs like feral rabbits. Unlike Rambo, which was a similarly violent but sturdier crowd-pleaser, Wanted is recalled like a lobotomy days later. Also, Common is sticking around.
7/10
Bonus Semi-Unrelated Movie Experience: Before I went into the screening room for Wanted, I waited online with my friend for 15 minutes to simply purchase a drink, blahblah. Between the totally unnecessary bombardment of trailers playing on TVs all around us (more than I’ve ever seen in a lobby this summer or ever), posters vying for every inch of personal space, and lots and lots of loud people in sandals it was pretty intense. In front of us was an old fat guy wearing a pink, salted cap. He already had an XL popcorn and a huge soda. Why the fuck was he on line again? At his feet was a little kid carrying an empty, greasy popcorn bucket. They get to the front, I’m already over the wait. They take forever for no apparent reason. I say to my friend, “This is a fucking anxiety attack waiting to happen. What is going on?” Finally, the old dude boosts the little kid up to the counter, and the kid drops 50 cents into the hand of the theater employee. His bucket is filled with popcorn, topped off with five huge buttery squirts and handed back to him, while still in the old guy’s grip. Then the little kid says, “Thank you” and waddles off. And the old guy says, “You’re welcome. Have fun lil’ buddy.” He then buys four boxes of candy. They were complete strangers. Maybe you had to be there, but it was fucking bizarre. After taking a seat in the screening room with a small Sprite and five Sour Patch Kids wrapped in a napkin, the movie started. It was that much more enjoyable watching a modern dork/hero gobble Xanax after Xanax to counter severe anxiety induced by the world’s expanding suckage.
Movie Rating due to this experience: 7.5/10
Ninja Assassin Attacks Car with Ninja Stars
German newspaper BILD has run a set photo from James McTeigue’s Ninja Assassin, which shows the front end of a car with who knows how many Ninja stars sticking through the hood. One can only imagine what kind of sequence The Wachowski Brothers have come up with that has resulted in this kind of car damage. Thanks to Christopher M for sending the photos along. The photo appears to be a month old, so I apologize to anyone who may have already seen it (I had not, so I decided to share).
Ninja Assassin stars stars Korean pop star Rain (Speed Racer) as Raizo, one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Taken from the streets as a child, he was transformed into a trained killer by the Ozunu Clan, a secret society whose very existence is considered a myth. But haunted by the merciless execution of his friend by the Clan, Raizo breaks free from them… and vanishes. Now he waits, preparing to exact his revenge.
In Berlin, Europol agent Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris) has stumbled upon a money trail linking several political murders to an underground network of untraceable assassins from the Far East. Defying the orders of her superior, Ryan Maslow (Ben Miles), Mika digs into top secret agency files to learn the truth behind the murders. Her investigation makes her a target, and the Ozunu Clan sends a team of killers, led by the lethal Takeshi (Rick Yune), to silence her forever. Raizo saves Mika from her attackers, but he knows that the Clan will not rest until they are both eliminated. Now, entangled in a deadly game of cat and mouse through the streets of Europe, Raizo and Mika must trust one another if they hope to survive… and finally bring down the elusive Ozunu Clan. The film also stars legendary martial arts performer Sho Kosugi (Revenge of the Ninja) as the ruthless leader of the Ozunu Clan.
Speed Racer Lapped
The summer box office season has seen its first crash.
The $100 million-ish Speed Racer opened this weekend with an estimated $20.2 million, and, according to one box office expert, will struggle to get to $50 million domestically by the time its run is done.
"In terms of Warner Bros., this is a yellow flag of caution," Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations Co. said today.
Elsewhere, Iron Man continued to show he was still the man (first place, $50.5 million), and Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz's What Happens in Vegas hit on a nice little number (third place, $20 million).
For the weekend, Speed Racer, directed by The Matrix's Wachowski brothers and starring Emile Hirsch as the 1960s cartoon driver come to life, finished second, behind Iron Man and ahead of What Happens in Vegas. But Bock said the rankings could change once today's studio estimates turn into Monday's final numbers.
"Don't be surprised if Speed Racer comes in third, when all is said and done," Bock said.
Speed Racer's slow start was not a surprise. The trailers didn't click. The reviews weren't good (although, per Rotten Tomatoes, the reviews for What Happens in Vegas were even worse).
According to Bock, the movie had a third strike against it: It is a family-friendly film.
"In today's market, when you have a PG film, it's really hard to market that to families," Bock said. "And when this one came out PG, it obviously was for kids only, and that means a lot of families don't go."
PG-13 is the marketing sweet spoteight of the year's top 10 films sport that rating, with The Spiderwick Chronicles the lone PG film in that mix.
Guess Pops Racer shouldn't hold back the next time he's cursing out Speed for grinding the gears on the Mach 5. Or 6.
Elsewhere:
- Iron Man is showing pretty good legs for a movie, circa 2008, with business down 51 percent. Last year, Spider-Man 3 dropped more than 60 percent in its second weekend.
- Overall, Iron Man's stateside take stands at $177.1 million. After two weekends, it has bypassed Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! as the year's No. 1 movie. What Happens in Vegas outgrossed Speed Racer, screen for screen, and debuted in the neighborhood of 27 Dresses and Fool's Gold, the year's two biggest romantic comedies.
- Owing to the Shrek and Charlie's Angels franchises, Diaz has enjoyed far bigger openings than What Happens in Vegas' $20 million. Owing to My Boss's Daughter, et al, Kutcher has only topped $20 million one other time (2005's Guess Who).
- If you think being a PG film is tough, try being an R. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (sixth place, $3.8 million; $50.7 million overall) and the forgotten Rambo ($42.8 million overall) are the only two of their kind in the year's top 20, per the stats at Box Office Mojo.
- David Mamet's Redbelt (10th place, $1.1 million; $1.2 million overall) broke wide, and broke into the top 10, which all sounds pretty good until you notice it "grossed," on average, $827 at each of its 1,300-plus theaters.
- Prom Night ($1.1 million; $42.8 million overall) and 88 Minutes ($485,000; $16.4 million overall, per Box Office Mojo) both ended their top 10 runs. 21 ($835,000) did, too, but it also crossed $80 million mark overall.
- It was another largely underwhelming weekend on the art-house circuit. Not one little movie grossed as much per screen as gigantic Iron Man, which averaged a weekend-best $12,284 at each of its 4,000-plus theaters.
- The Fall, a fantasy-drama starring Pushing Daisies' Lee Pace, distinguished itself with a strong $80,200 at nine theaters, per Box Office Mojo.
Here's a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- Iron Man, $50.5 million
- Speed Racer, $20.2 million
- What Happens in Vegas, $20 million
- Made of Honor, $7.6 million
- Baby Mama, $5.8 million
- Forgetting Sarah Marshall, $3.8 million
- Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, $3.2 million
- The Forbidden Kingdom, $1.9 million
- Nim's Island, $1.3 million
- Redbelt, $1.1 million
How Speed Freak Ricci Plays the Paparazzi
Christina Ricci totally has a way with the press. The Speed Racer starshe's Emile Hirsch's girlfriend Trixie in the Wachowski brothers flickexplains to me how she plays it so cool all the time. Also check the clip for her dish on Britney, Real Housewives and why she hasn't always been so friendly with the paparazzi.