Wanted

Wanted is basically Office Space with the charm, humor and social commentary replaced with gory violence, a liberal frosting of Matrix "bullet time" effects, and with the quirky compelling characters replaced entirely with a cast of completely unsympathetic assholes.

It's basically violence porn aimed at the ineffectual corporate cubicle set, the sort of men who desperately subscribe to Maxim in the hopes it will impart them with the mythical ability to "get laid." Ironically the target audience here is actually probably more like Barry, the minor supporting character who bangs the main character's girlfriend on his lunch break after cadging energy drinks and condoms out of him, than main character Wesley, a total weiner who knows he's being cuckolded, who takes ridiculous shit from his dominating boss, and yet refuses to do anything about it because he gets panic attacks at the first sign of any confrontation.

It would take epic douchehosery on the level of a Barry to fully appreciate this movie, as you'd have to completely shut your brain off to raising both moral questions and to simple observations of how ridiculous and deus-ex-machina elements of the plot are, being willing to simply belt out with a "Wooo, dude look at THAT" at every slow-mo bullet blasting through a human forehead or elaborate chase scene involving the barely acknowledged deaths of scads of screaming innocents.

Wesley, played by some guy I've never seen before, finally realizes his panic attacks are actually a superhuman ability that allows him to slow down his perception of time (see also Matrix/Max Payne) when a secret fraternity of assassins called ... The Fraternity comes around to recruit him. Apparently his father was a big muckety muck with them and, for reasons never adequately explained, they decide they'll train this complete greenhorn to track down the killer rather than sending one of their experienced pros to do it. Wesley makes the leap from out-of-shape cubicle dork to comic book character in less than half an hour of screen time thanks to the good ol' 1980s montage, which among other things features a Fight Club ripoff, a bizarre variant of "snatching the pebble from my hand" and whipping pistols "gangsta style" to make bullets curve around things. Meanwhile, we find out that the Fraternity also takes their orders from a magic loom.

Angelina Jolie is, amazingly, the only halfway complex character in the story, and also gets an opportunity to show off her ass briefly. When the guns aren't blazing and slow-mo kung fu kicks aren't rotating around you can usually stare at her doing her intense, tattooed, Gothy hyper-sexual thing. I can understand Terrence Stamp maybe needing money, but how they roped Morgan Freeman into this as a pivotal character I'll never know (favor owed to someone at the studio? Secret gambling problem? The mind boggles.) No one does anything memorable on the acting front and the only notable aspect of Morgan's performance here is that for some reason - possibly the lulz - he is affecting the old Pepperidge Farm commercial guy's accent as part of his character.

If all you care about is violence, masochism and soulless cleverness, Wanted is a very well-polished example of all of the above, which may be what explains the otherwise inexplicable "72% Fresh" rating it currently enjoys on RottenTomatoes (possibly that mixed with some generous dollops of payola.) Apparently the movie is based on some obscure graphic novel series that was highly acclaimed by Nerds of the Internet and Comic Book Guys. I've never read it or even heard of it, but knowing what I know about their tastes, I'm sure it's the usual thin veneer of literacy covering the standard stylistic posing and projected power-fantasy of another romp through the good ol' Myth of Redemptive Violence. The movie goes one step further by stripping away the surface coat of whatever artistic or social merit it might have had to begin with.