I saw the film before I read Millar's graphic novel so I didn't come to the film with images already stuck in my head about how the movie adaptation should look. I didn't even intend to read the graphic novel before writing my review but I picked up a copy because I was curious what it looked like. But then I read Brian K. Vaughn's introduction that said "if this is your first time reading Wanted, have fun, and get ready for those last two pages. Those of you who refuse to see what the conclusion is really saying will probably want to burn this beautiful collection the second you put it down... and to you chosen few who find yourself smiling when you finally reach the end of Wesley Gibson's journey? Welcome to the other side."
Well that was a come on I couldn't resist so I immediately sat down and raced through the book to get to those two pages. And Millar delivered. The film delivers too but not in exactly the same way and not with quite the knockout punch of the source material. Those familiar with the graphic novel will notice some immediate differences. No capes and tights, no one who dresses like a Marvel or DC super-hero, and no characters named Sh-thead or F-ckwit (I really would have liked to see Sh-thead but maybe he's being held for the sequel). The film Wanted looks more like the real world than the graphic novel despite its over the top action, and provides us with characters who are more accessible.
Yet the opening of the film does stick pretty close to the content and tone of the graphic novel. Wesley (James McAvoy) introduces us to his pathetic life. Wesley hates everything about his life - everything from his mind-numbing job to his girlfriend who screws his best friend on the table Wesley just picked up from Ikea to the fact that his dad abandoned him when he was an infant. As Wesley narrates what his life is like, we are taken on a surreal journey through his office where his chubby boss continually gnaws at his dignity and snaps an ever-present stapler in his face to get his attention. Then he meets Fox (Angelina Jolie looking a bit too anorexic to be holding guns as big as Fox's) at the pharmacy and his whole life changes. Fox reprimands him for apologizing too much and then informs him that his father was a top assassin who was just killed, and the man who killed him is in the store right behind Wesley.
Angelina Jolie as Fox in Wanted (Universal)
Needless to say, this changes Wesley's dull existence quite dramatically. The film combines Fight Club and The Matrix to give us a beaten down character that suddenly wakes up to a different reality. From Fight Club , Wanted takes the tone and attitude of a man who feels his insignificance eating away at him and who suddenly finds a way to fight back. From The Matrix, it takes a dizzying, gravity-defying sense of action and of a character waking up to a new reality. Wesley is soon introduced to a group known as The Fraternity, which is run by a man named Sloane (Morgan Freeman). Wesley is initiated into the group so that he can hunt down his father's killer.
The twist, though, is that the actor playing Wesley is James McAvoy, the romantic lead from Atonement . He's a great and unusual choice; it's like casting Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate when everyone was expecting someone like Robert Redford. McAvoy's very much against type as an action hero. His performance gives a fresh take to the action film. It's a little bit like Robert Downey Jr.'s performance in Iron Man ; it grounds the film in reality more. We can identify with the nerdy, short, and not very athletic looking McAvoy as he struggles through his training and seems initially quite ill suited to his task. McAvoy's performance makes the character more human despite all the outlandish things happening around him.
James McAvoy with his new body... are those abs real or CGI? Wanted (Universal)
But once again a film has simplified the graphic novel on which it was based. Millar's book proposed a very bleak world where a band of killers join forces to rid the world of super-heroes. Millar's book was dark and suggested world neatly devoid of morality. The film tries to make Wesley sympathetic and moral. And the concluding scenes in the film try to make the "bad" people pay for their crimes. Now the ending - which actually plays out in two parts - is cleverly designed and shot. The final scene - the equivalent of the book's final two pages - has neither have the nihilistic swagger nor the sense of flipping off the audience that Millar managed to pull off so brilliantly in the book. But it has a little bite of fun and bite.
But the film, written by the trio of Michael Brandt, Derek Haas and Chris Morgan, creates unnecessary new complications while ignoring the more intriguing complications of the book. So in the film we get this loom of fate that spits out zeroes and ones as a code for who to kill, which is a bit lame. But we don't get the book's more complicated father-son relationship with its kicker resolution. The film serves up a kinder, gentler Wanted; one geared more for mall theater audiences.
Yet despite the film's shortcomings, it still delivers a kick-ass summer action film thanks to director Timur Bekmambetov. He's the Russian filmmaker who gave a much-needed transfusion to the vampire genre with Night Watch and Day Watch. Those films, like Wanted, center on an unlikely protagonist as well ( Night Watch's disheveled Konstantin Khabensky makes an appearance in Wanted as The Exterminator.) What's fun to see is how Bekmambetov has made the move from low budget (by Hollywood standards) films in Russia to big budget Hollywood films. He takes the budget increase and uses it efficiently to make a killer action film. Bekmambetov especially excels at the car stunts - which were also a highlight in his vampire films. Cars speed through streets and fly through the air without paying the least heed to gravity. Then throw in some gunplay and it's a great ride. Bekmambetov treats the bullets with the same sense of dynamism as he treats the cars, so bullets collide into each other or fly through the city like a heat seeking missile winding around obstacles as it's locked on a target miles away. The film regularly defies reality and does so with the greatest sense of fun. Although an attack using rats as a secret weapon may enrage PETA. But aside from that, Bekmambetov endows the film with a joyous sense of action like a kid who just got his allowance upped and can buy bigger and better toys, and that's what makes the film a success.
Fast cars, big guns and sexy girls... what more can you ask for in an action film? Wanted (Universal)
Bekmambetov also takes delight in the "action" of the office. He choreographs scenes with characters weaving through dull cubicles and gives us a quitting scene to rival Kevin Spacey sticking it to his boss in American Beauty. There's also a nice bit of business involving a keyboard and letters flying through the air to spell out Wesley's sentiments at the moment.
Wanted (rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language and some sexuality) gets a thumbs up as an action film. If you liked McAvoy in Atonement , this might not be the film for you. But if you want to see guys who can bend bullets like Beckham does a soccer ball then this film is great fun. And if it had kept more of the graphic novel's originality, it could have even been a great film.
Companion viewing: Shoot 'Em Up, Night Watch, Day Watch , Rory O'Shea was Here, American Beauty
