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Film Critique
The Matrix Regurgitated
Been there, done that

by Barry Wurst II

June 26, 2008

License and registration, please?
It’s been nine long years since the release of The Matrix, but did the makers of Wanted think we completely forgot? See if this sounds familiar: a lonely, white caller worker is recruited by a mysterious femme fatale to join a secret society (that is ruled by an older man with a deep, foreboding voice) and learns the real truth about the world we live in. Instead of Keanu Reeves, we get star-on-the-rise James McAvoy. Rather than Carrie-Ann Moss, we get Angelina Jolie (ever heard of her?) Substitute Laurence Fishburne for Morgan Freeman and, instead of a secret club bent on overcoming world domination from a pack of machines, we get a small community of assassins living in a fraternity called…The Fraternity. With its emphasis on flamboyant special effects, and ample gun play, Wanted plays like The Matrix without the sci-fi angle (I half expected the end credits to read: Based on a Better Movie by The Wachowski Brothers).

McAvoy has a following and is said to make the ladies swoon (thanks, but I’ll take island boy Keanu Reeves any day.) Jolie is a great actress, but here she has a role less interesting than the one-dimensional babe she played in Gone in 60 Seconds and Tomb Raider. Freeman’s appearance, on the other hand, is puzzling. His role as an intimidating, foul-mouthed (yes, the “March of the Penguins” narrator drops a few F-bombs!) henchman is a perfect fit for Samuel L. Jackson but feels wrong for a magnificent actor who is arguably best known for playing God twice in the last five years.

The movie itself is blood-soaked, long, highly profane, incredibly silly, crude and not terribly original (in short, it’s this summer’s Swordfish.) On the other hand, a few of the action sequences will get hearts racing. One in particular involves a train, one of the most amazing things I’ve seen all year.  The ending suggests a sequel-ready franchise; unlike The Matrix, however, the violence is  sometimes hard to take, the special effects are over-the-top and obvious, and, unlike the story of Neo, Wanted isn’t about anything beyond how stylish movie violence can look. Whoa. MTW