The Loom of Doom (title courtesy of She-Ra)

I have friends who really like the move 'Wanted'. One friend swears that it revolutionizes action films as we know it. Others say it's pretty entertaining, and add as all people do when describing films like this, the move is "pretty entertaining for what it is....which is..." (uncomfortable coughing) "a summer action movie." And poof, all transgressions are forgiven.

This movie takes those built in liberties and hopeful attitudes we lend it and throws it in our faces, as a gorilla would fecal matter. "Bad gorilla, but what can you expect? It's just a summer movie..."

This is what I remember from the movie. The dude from 'Atonement' screams and complains about his slow motion-then-fast-motion worker bee life, gets picked up by Angelina Jolie through generous use of extreme(!!) and tilted close-ups, and then there is a training montage when he decides to take his place in a society of super assassins that was once held by his father. The society is good because it kills people who deserve to be killed, and this objectivity is given by a loom that threads out binary code. Seriously, that's it. I read the comic book - not even a comic book could make that up.

But wait, there's more! There's a plot twist, which might've been cool if the film worked for me, hinging completely on the "curved bullet" which had been established many times beforehand lest we forget about this really cool thing they're gonna put in the commercials to draw people in, which is a curved bullet, which is amazing, because bullets don't curve in their trajectories, so this would be different - wowzah - curved bullets! I don't want to ruin the twist, except Angelina Jolie kills all the bad guys - who happen to be standing in a circle - with one bullet: a curved bullet.

And there's a point in the film where the writers, who probably haven't finished the script midway through filming, decide that a bad-ass way to blow shit up would be to lace a truckload of mice with explosives, have them run around, and detonate in slow-motion-then-fast-motion extreme(!!!) and tilted close-ups. Because that would be cool, kinetic, and unreal extreme!!!

Also, there are some scenes about an untraceable bullet, General Zod, moral conundrums done away with by Angelina Jolie's pouty story about not following the wisdom of the loom, and throw away laughs, such as Jolie in her messed up corvette pulling up next to a bunch of teenagers at a stoplight after an epic car battle bonanza. The big-eyed teenagers can't believe how f-cked up the car is! Oh gosh, they're speechless! The shot lasts a second longer than necessary (although really, was it necessary in the first place?) just so the audience is cued to laugh. Tee hee! I get it! The convertible was once nice, but now messed up! And there are bullet holes! Angelina Jolie is so bad azz! Tee hee har!

This was no "Live Free or Die Hard". This wasn't Superman, when we could say - okay, I know this is way out there, but the film makers have given me an excuse to jump in and suspend my disbelief - no, this was a gorilla throwing us poo-pie. By supporting films like this, we are telling movie companies that we want more films like this. Films based on curved bullets and expected Pavlovian responses to "funny" moments.