300 was a good, if somewhat over-hyped, movie. It was a movie that took some time to fully sink in for me, because the style was so unique, almost hokey, yet compelling. Ultimately, it had to be looked at as a very sincere attempt by director Zack Snyder to capture the feel and style of Frank Miller's original graphic novel, and Snyder did so masterfully. 300 was the exact realization of the source material on screen.

 

That being said, that defense just doesn't hold water if the source material is a steaming pile of excrement to begin with. Which leads us to the subject of this review, WANTED. I decided to give this movie a couple of days to sink in. It didn't help.

 

Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is a loser. He works at a dead-end job where he is harassed by his obnoxious, loutish boss, a woman who has watched "The Drew Carey Show" a few times too many (once). His live-in girlfriend is cheating on him with his office cubicle partner. What makes this all the more pathetic is that Wesley knows this, but doesn't do anything. He also suffers from chronic panic attacks. We learn all of this in a series of profanity laden internal monologues that play like "Hamlet" as written by David Mamet and performed by Edward Norton's character in Fight Club, who thinks he is Daniel Stern on an episode of "The Wonder Years."

 

But one night, when Wesley is at the pharmacy having his prescriptions refilled (which he seems to do twice a day), he is approached by a mysterious woman (Angelina Jolie) who immediately adopts him. No, actually, she tells him that she knew his father. Wesley explains that he didn't, that his father had actually left home before Wesley was even born. The woman explains that Wesley's father was one of the world's greatest assassins, and that he was killed the previous day on a rooftop, by a man (Thomas Kretschmann) who is right there in the store with them.

 

A huge gunfight ensues, followed by by a huge car chase. The woman, who goes by the handle of "Fox," takes Wesley to meet her friends, an organization of killers, called "The Fraternity," which is lead by a man named Sloan (Morgan Freeman, who seems to have generously stepped into the role because it was beneath the dignity of Samuel L. Jackson, but above that of Wesley Snipes, and Freeman had a hole in his schedule before The Dark Knight and wanted to make sure that a distinguished blacktor got the chance to look foolish in this movie.) It seems that the "Fraternity" was formed 100 years ago by a society of weavers, who got so bored looking at cloth and thread all day that they decided "what the heck? Let's kill some people." It seems that Wesley's father was a great Jedi Master, and Sloan believes that the Force is strong in his son, because he possesses an unusually high level of midi-chlorians, and an old woman who makes cookies and calls herself "The Oracle" thinks he may be "The One." Or something like that. At this point it was becoming hard to distinguish what movie I was watching.

 

From here on, the story becomes about Wesley training to become an assassin. This training consists of a series of savage, brutal beatings, learning how shoot the wings off of flies and "curve" bullets, taking baths in what is either ice water or paraffin wax (I'm still not sure), getting slashed with knives, and, in the most cruel torture of all, almost, but not quite, missing the chance to see Angelina Jolie naked.

 

Then Wesley starts performing actual hits, but of course, he can't stop thinking about his father, and he feels he must avenge his death. To that end, he decides to leave Degobah against Yoda's advice . . . sorry, I'm getting confused again . . . he goes against Sloan's wishes and heads out to find his father's killer and eliminate him. Sloan disapproves because it's not what they do. Targets are chosen by "fate," in the form of binary code written in the cloth that comes out of a loom. The code gives them a name, and that is how they decide who to kill. I am not making this up.

 

Director Timur Bekmambetov ("Night Watch") handles the material with all of the subtlety of a community bedpan, giving us action scenes that would seem over the top in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. In one sequence, McAvoy and Kretshmann shoot each other's bullets out of the air at leas FIVE TIMES. Any moment I expected the police to break down a door and say "Freeze! You're under arrest for multiple violations of the laws of physics!" We're not talking about "Indiana Jones" style suspension of disbelief. We are talking about stuff that goes beyond the wildest moments in "The Matrix" trilogy - except that there, we were given an explanation as to how the impossible feats were, in fact, possible, and that was a big part of the fun. The best we get here is that Wesley doesn't really have panic attacks, it's just that, like his father, "his heart beats really fast." Word.

 

But in addition to the action being so ludicrous, the movie often degenerates into what I can only describe as "Violence porn." It's just constant graphic brutality for no good reason, shown in grotesque detail. This movie isn't just stupid, it teeters on the edge of being thoroughly amoral in a way that makes "Kill Bill" look family friendly. Eventually, there is a slight twinge of conscience thrown in, but it is soon tossed aside in favor of making the point that killing is the only way to be truly cool. I really felt like walking out on this movie, and I would have, if I hadn't been with a friend who was as excited for it as I was for "Indiana Jones." In the end, the film made me feel dirty and disgusted with myself for having sat through it, and I wish I had followed my instincts.

 

The only saving grace to all of this is McAvoy, who has displayed his considerable talents in much better films, ranging from "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" to "Atonement." Poor McAvoy is clearly happy to be given a star vehicle, and he is acting his heart out, showing an almost Christian Bale like potential. Unfortunately, his dialogue is so bad, and the performances he is playing off of so weak that he doesn't have much to work with. Jolie is nothing more than adequate in her role, displaying little of the charm she has showed in the past as an action heroine. (and it is important to note that I am big fan, with a bona fide longstanding crush on Mrs. Pitt, and I tend to want to see anything she is in. But truth be told, she seems so disinterested, and is so frail and emaciated in this film, that her presence did nothing for me.) But the tragedy here is the great Morgan Freeman, who I have always believed was incapable of giving a bad performance. It was painful to be proven wrong on this. Without giving too much away, there is a moment when Freeman looks directly at the camera and mugs so outrageously that it was impossible to believe this was one of my idols I was watching.

All of this being said, it is important to point out that the audience around me, most of whom got their free passes courtesy of "Night Flight Comics," and  seemed to be quite familiar with the source material, seemed to be loving every minute of this. Every unmotivated F-Word was greeted with uproarious laughter (which adds up to roughly 200 laughs per minute), and each slow motion bullet through the head was lovingly embraced as if it was a thing of beauty. I can't remember the last time I felt this much horror for the future of mankind.

 

But it was still more interesting than The Happening.

 

WANTED is rated R for graphic, brutal violence, constant profanity, torture, sex, brief nudity (Macavoy and Jolie's backsides), drug use, vulgarity, excessive consumption of caffeinated energy drinks, women with too much make-up, over-acting and anything else you can think of that might be unpleasant.