Hola all. Massawyrm here.

I hate the phrase “fun summer movie.” It always seems like a backhanded complement used by film critics who don’t seem to actually LOVE movies. They like them alright and love really, really great ones. But summer movies? That’s nothing but a series of lowest common denominator remainders, or to crib from Cameron Crowe hamburgers for the apocalypse. Right? Well as a big fan of popcorn chomping fare, I appreciate a good time when I see one. And while it pains me to even type the words, there are few other words that apply so well. Wanted is none but pure, unadulterated, big screen, fun summer fare.

Wearing its influences on its sleeve, much like its direct competition Wall-E, Wanted draws from the genre and counter culture explosion of the turn of the century (the recent one.) The Matrix, Fight Club, as well as the work of John Woo and Luc Besson all find themselves liberally borrowed from for this superhero, comic book bad boy romp through a universe predicated with ultra violence. And while it takes its inspiration from a number of great sources, it doesn’t give back enough to become greater than a sum of its parts.

It’s just fun. A loud, beautiful, visually arresting good time that blows shit up, blows heads clean off but won’t ever blow your mind. I can see the criticism here clear as day. The people that don’t dig this are gonna tear it up. And I can’t really defend it. While not flawed enough to constitute guilty pleasure viewing, this is by no means terrible nor a masterpiece. It’s a romp, a candy coated explosion of ass beating meant for mass consumption and nothing more.

The acting is about what you’d expect from a director’s first effort at English-as-a-second-language filmmaking. Given some of the better working actors of the day, everyone is passable even when they’re not given much to do. Jolie is oddly cast as the beautiful, deadly sidekick assassin and is party to some of the films better action scenes. But as her strong suit really is dialog, it seems weird to see her playing the “Ray Park” mostly silent actiony type. It’s kind of disconcerting – not because she’s bad in any way, but mostly because she seems like too big a name to be used as glowering set dressing in so many scenes.

The real treat here is James McAvoy who stands out as a solid lead and proves that he can handle the big budget Hollywood style stuff as well as he handles the period pieces and indie funded Oscar movies. He gives off a vibe that leads me to believe he’s about to become the next Colin Farrell - a really talented, good looking actor who goes from great indie stuff into more mainstream roles. Here’s hoping he can avoid overexposure and maintain the level of quality we’ve seen from him in the past two years.

But there’s not really much else to say about this. It’s a comic book movie carrying with it R rated sensibilities. It’s easy enough to dismiss as it really doesn’t bring much new to the table aside from some stunning action sequences, but will prove entertaining enough for folks to just as easily dismiss the criticism with a “Shutup, I like it.” It is the very definition of a matinee movie. I’m not gonna tell anyone to run out and see it, but those that do will find themselves watching an edge of your seat actioner with enough clever set pieces to entertain you for an afternoon. But you won’t be rushing out to see it again right away.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

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