Free gun hugs for everyone! Everyman-turned-hitman James McAvoy is a real softy at heart
When Angelina Jolie arcs her flawless back across the hood of a Dodge Viper, firing twin shotguns at a passing truck, and the sounds of the chaotic chase grow muffled and far away in order to accentuate the long, breathy moan she lets out, it's extremely clear what kind of film Wanted is. It's distilled comic book cool from start to finish. It’s ironic, then, that the Mark Millar and J.G Jones comic that shares its name with the movie is treated more as inspiration than gospel, but, frankly, the differences aren't that important.
References, in-jokes and cribbed monologues abound, but the film version of Wanted is closer to The Matrix than it is to the comic book, although it trades the Wachowski's loose understanding of Descarte and Plato with an even looser understanding of utilitarian philosopher John Stewart Mill and determinist thinker Pierre-Simon Laplace. The philosophy comes in second to the bombastic action set pieces, which are equal parts outrageous, hilarious and thrilling — but let's face it, Millar's original comics weren't much more than explosive action sequences strung together by some pretty flimsy philosophy, anyway.
Though director Timur Bekmambetov's grasp of Laplace's demon might be flimsy, his hold on The Law of Exploding Rats is absolute. The law states, basically, that they are awesome, and when hundreds are used as the first steps in a 15-minute gun-ballet through a textile mill, they are totally awesome. In addition to this crucial philosophy, Bekmambetov also has a solid comprehension of the Hitting Guys With Ergonomic Keyboards in Slow Motion Paradox, the Shooting People While Your Gun is Already Inside Someone's Head Problem and the classic epistemological argument that shooting bullets out of the air with other bullets is way cool. It may be a far distant cousin to Millar's original story, but the vital element has been maintained: the giddy, adolescent, completely unironic lunacy.
Wanted is not without its problems, but they're shared, for the most part, with every other lovably dim-witted action-blockbuster. There's at least one obvious, mile-wide plot hole, character motivations are paper-thin and the exposition is handled with cruel, uncreative efficiency. One flaw it borrows from Millar's comic is the ending, which was a strong contender for laziest writing ever done by a mammal. The ending has been significantly altered in the film, but the message is essentially the same, and not an iota more intelligent. Still, Wanted is not trying to be an intelligent film. It's not even trying to be a moderately clever film. It's trying to be a film with exploding rats in it, and in that, it succeeds delightfully.
