Wanted is a motion picture based on a comic book that twists and turns its source material, making it more marketable and palatable for the masses. Imagine if the same thing had been done to The Joker in The Dark Knight and how different (and less memorable) that would have made that film. Most comic book fans are probably breathing a sigh of relief that this isn’t the case with Watchmen (2009).
If the main characters from the Wanted comic book written by Mark Miller — namely Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), a created-from-scratch sociopath and the insane killer Fox (Angelina Jolie) — were transferred in their entirety from the comic book, there would be no sympathetic characters in Wanted and no one for the audience to root for. So the screenwriters (and most likely the studio) watered the characters down, modifying them into heroes with a mission and a politically correct calling.
Wesley Gibson is a nobody, someone everyone walks over in life, including his rotund boss Janice (Lorna Scott) and his best friend Barry (Chris Pratt), who is banging Wesley’s girlfriend Cathy (Kristen Hager). Wesley was abandoned while an infant by Mr. X (David O’Hara), a world famous assassin killed at the beginning of Wanted. Wesley is later informed of this fact by Fox before they both embark on one of the film’s marquee battle scenes.
Wanted is filled with inventive, computer enhanced action sequences. Some of the action sequences work while some are too over the top for their own good. It would have been more interesting if some of the car action sequences within Wanted were done in real time as they were in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and Death Proof. Because of the brazen absence of the laws of gravity, these scenes and others are transformed from action to a badly CGI-ed cartoon right in front of the viewer’s eyes then back again -- bearing in mind that Wanted's comic book roots do grant the film some license and leeway when it comes to some of its more preposterous aspects.
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