One of the coolest things I had an opportunity to do while in Chicago was get a tour of a new movie theater. The theater in Rosemont, branded the Muvico is a pilot theater for an enhanced movie going experience. They had a ton of great amenities on site, from a day care center, to a video game lounge, and a really nice restaurant, as well as an over 21 section of every theater so viewers can go in with food and drinks to the extra wide plush seats and enjoy their film with fantastic digital projection and perfect sound. It was very Very nice. I don't want to go on about it, but in the interest of full disclosure it probably did affect my enjoyment of this movie in a positive way.
Wanted as we should all know by now is an action film about a nebbish office monkey, played by James McAvoy who gets recruited by super hot Angelina Joile to join a guild of super assassins. He has a power, an aptitude to do things like curve bullets, and something of a destiny as well. The assassins guild, lead by the indomitable Morgan Freeman is quickly losing members as all of their best agents are being taken out by an apparent assassin's assassin; a former insider gone rogue, and its up to our new hero to find it in himself to stop the madness before all his new killer friends lose their lives.
The movie is essentially Fight Club meets The Matrix. It has a lot of style, coming from Director Timur Bekmambetov who brought us Night and Day Watch, but not much in the way of real meat. The story, which is supposedly not very closely based of Mark Millar's graphic novel, is frankly put extremely weak and unoriginal. That's not to say it was really bad, or poorly constructed. But it still felt like a patching together of stories and characters I'd heard all about before. And then when one of a handful of actually unique ideas do come along, like the weave of life telling the story and destiny of the assassins, its treated so poorly it becomes really laughable. That proved bothersome and this film consistently went for the quick hit and the easy action sequence over creating anything of substance.
I didn't hate Wanted, I wouldn't want people thinking that because in many ways it is a very solid film. I just wasn't as impressed as I was hoping I would be. That said, the film looked fantastic, and just in terms of summer popcorn blockbuster I'll do, I think ti just very obviously could've been more.
If you haven't seen it yet and are considering it, I'd say yes you should, but maybe you should wait for the dvd instead of going to the cineplex. It'll be great fun to watch on a good home theater system, but what you get for a theater alone, fancy seats and alcohol aside, it's just not quite worth it.
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Wanted as we should all know by now is an action film about a nebbish office monkey, played by James McAvoy who gets recruited by super hot Angelina Joile to join a guild of super assassins. He has a power, an aptitude to do things like curve bullets, and something of a destiny as well. The assassins guild, lead by the indomitable Morgan Freeman is quickly losing members as all of their best agents are being taken out by an apparent assassin's assassin; a former insider gone rogue, and its up to our new hero to find it in himself to stop the madness before all his new killer friends lose their lives.
The movie is essentially Fight Club meets The Matrix. It has a lot of style, coming from Director Timur Bekmambetov who brought us Night and Day Watch, but not much in the way of real meat. The story, which is supposedly not very closely based of Mark Millar's graphic novel, is frankly put extremely weak and unoriginal. That's not to say it was really bad, or poorly constructed. But it still felt like a patching together of stories and characters I'd heard all about before. And then when one of a handful of actually unique ideas do come along, like the weave of life telling the story and destiny of the assassins, its treated so poorly it becomes really laughable. That proved bothersome and this film consistently went for the quick hit and the easy action sequence over creating anything of substance.
I didn't hate Wanted, I wouldn't want people thinking that because in many ways it is a very solid film. I just wasn't as impressed as I was hoping I would be. That said, the film looked fantastic, and just in terms of summer popcorn blockbuster I'll do, I think ti just very obviously could've been more.
If you haven't seen it yet and are considering it, I'd say yes you should, but maybe you should wait for the dvd instead of going to the cineplex. It'll be great fun to watch on a good home theater system, but what you get for a theater alone, fancy seats and alcohol aside, it's just not quite worth it.
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