I Don't Know What I Expected, Really...

Mike and I saw Wanted last night. It...

Well, did you ever see a movie and leave the theater thinking that the trailer was waaaaay better?

Yeah.

I was pumped for this film. A few seconds into the trailer, months ago, Mike and I turned to each other in awe. It had the bad-ass Morgan Freeman, my boyfriend, James McAvoy, and the baby factory herself, Angelina Jolie. There were car chases and knife fights, curving bullets and massive amounts of blowing up of things. AWESOME. I am not a Jolie fan, but the movie looked far too rad to worry about that.

But dammit. It wasn't that great.

First off, as I read in another review (which I noticed last night, but which I will link to here so that they don't accuse me of plagiarism. Not that they would read my piddly little blog anyway, but whatever), Wanted immediately brought to mind Office Space and Fight Club. So... do what you will with that.

"Do you think that I'm wearing enough eyeshadow?"

James McAvoy's character, Wesley Gibson, is a cubicle jockey with no direction. He's an accountant with a fat, bitchy boss (trust me on this one, as she is AMAZING), is completely aware that his best friend (Chris Pratt, far removed from his Everwood days, and oh how I loved him on Everwood) is boning his bitch girlfriend, and is flat broke. He has no drive, no ambition, and suffers from anxiety attacks. When Fox (Jolie) pulls him into the middle of a gun fight in a drug store, he awakens to find out that he has been chosen as a new recruit to The Fraternity, headed by Sloane (Freeman).

Over one thousand years ago, The Fraternity was founded by weavers. Yes, weavers. I know. You'll find out why shortly. And Wesley pledges them but good. The boy deserves an extra can of Natty Lite for his efforts, bros. He's the tits. He EARNED IT. Because his training sequences? Are where the Fight Club bits trickle in. There are some unwatchable, cringe-worthy scenes of this "induction" during which I really thought that I was going to lose it all over the floor. But I was wearing flip flops and thought that it would be gross, and so managed to reel it back in.

Wesley's father was a Fraternity member, recently killed by a rogue assassin. Hearing Morgan Freeman say this made me die a little inside, honestly. It sounded RIDICULOUS. This rogue is now after Wesley, and Wesley, apparently, is the only one who can kill him. And avenge his father's death. It's a two-for-one!

The stunts are sweet and mind-blowing, and I know that my complaining below is silly now that I know I went into this film expecting too much. Had I just expected a blow-em-up action-thriller, maybe I'd be happy with the mediocre plot.

Ha!

Warning - stop reading if you actually want to see this movie and be "surprised" by what goes down.

This movie was entertaining, and that's about it. The plot was recycled and trite, the characters were unappealing, and Morgan Freeman as the good-guy-but-OMG-secretly-the-bad-guy was hard to believe. Wesley's "father" was just killed, but he tells us in his monologue that his father left when he was seven days old. So he just takes their word? OF COURSE HIS FATHER IS ALIVE AND ALSO A GOOD GUY. GOD.

But the part that made me - and half the theater - laugh out loud is where Wesley finally comes to his senses and asks where the kill orders originate. Sloane leads him to a room occupied only by a gigundous loom. Sloane pauses, to make it hurt, and says, "This... is the Loom of Fate."

APPARENTLY, the loom weaves and weaves, and occasionally makes a mistake. Oops, not a mistake! When one of the threads is woven over instead of under, it can be recorded in BINARY and spells out the name of the next target. And... okay, I get that things are supposed to happen for a reason, and Jolie-Fox gives us a twenty-year-old tale of why the LOOM OF FATE matters so much to them, but come the fuck on. A fucking loom?

Fuck off, LOOM.

Oh, and Morgan Freeman delivers a line that should have NEVER COME OUT OF HIS MOUTH, and the theater collectively tittered about that, too. Seriously, Morgan, leave the swearing to Samuel L. Jackson. At least we believe it when he says that there are motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plane.

One saving grace was a dirty old man sitting in the front row of the theater. During a scene where Jolie-Fox emerges from a paraffin bath naked (body double? Who cares?), the theater was dead quiet. Once her tattooed back and ass came into view, this guy emitted the creepiest, old-manniest, giddy laugh/chuckle, "heh, heh, heh." The entire theater busted out laughing. Not that it ruined the scene, though, as it really couldn't be saved - even with gratuitous nudity.

"Heh, heh, heh..."

Also, the pajiba review I linked to above? It's crap. The reviewer must have reverted back to his thirteen-year-old self in order to love the movie as much as he did. Maybe guys will just LOVE this film because of the blow uppery things and guns and Jolie-Fox's ass, but it seemed that the majority of the theatergoers last night were unimpressed. I don't quite feel like I wasted my money, but it's a close call.

And you know? I like movies with violence - I don't shy away. Pulp Fiction? Fight Club? I loved them both. The violence was necessary to the plotlines and was accepted because they each had PLOTS THAT MADE SENSE. In fact, the goriest, most violent film I've ever seen, Pan's Labyrinth, is also one of the best movies I've ever seen. The violence was practically a character in that film and completely and utterly necessary to the plot.

So don't be all, "Meh, she's a stupid girl! She doesn't GET violence." Because I do. Wanted's violence was gratuitous and vomit-inducing and no thank you to that.

See for yourself, though.

Finally, I think that this will be hilarious to you even if you haven't seen the film. "Also, I adopted a couple of kids." Man, I love TWOP.