This is Russian director Timur Bekmambetov's first US movie. Best known to Western audiences for vampire flick Nightwatch, anyone who's seen that movie will recognise his style immediately. Like a cinematic Kanye West he pilfers material from bona fide artists and wraps it up in some blingy-bling so garishly hideous that only those born of an incestuous gang bang and raised within a certain proximity to high power transmitters will have an IQ low enough to tolerate his films. The fact that a Hollywood studio and some A-list actors chose to get on board the bling train that is Wanted further highlights the shrinking gene pool and extraneous cell phone use in certain areas of Southern California. You can make your own inferences about Russia.
Wanted is loosely based on a comic book by Mark Millar, and follows the messianic rise of Wesley Gibson (James McEvoy) from hypochondriac cubicle rat to bullet-bending super assassin. McEvoy is clearly trying to expand his American audience, and I'm sure the prospect of getting a big wet one from Angelina Jolie helped ink his pen on the deal. Jolie herself is there purely for window dressing (didn't she win an Oscar?) and Morgan Freeman seems to have wandered in from a Samuel L Jackson Make-As-Many-Movies-As-You-Can-Before-You-Die-No-Matter-What-Garbage-They-Give-You-To-Say weekend retreat.
Technology is leaving culture floundering in its wake in today's mainstream cinema. Films like this are being conceived, developed, and sold purely on the basis of technology, and real storytelling that engages audiences is succumbing to this culture of titillation. But we all know you can't stop the inexorable march of progress, so I'm going to tape a dozen mobile phones to my head so I can gape in wonder at the loud noises and shiny things. Who's with me? Let's get stupid!
Eamonn Gray
