WANTED - Blu-ray review

I watched "Wanted" and found it entertaining, but wasn't overly impressed. In fact, I considered the film a lesser attempt of portraying over-the-top action than the excellent "Shoot ‘Em Up." Then I did a little research on "Wanted" and realized it was based on a comic book miniseries and suddenly the film made just a little more sense to me and I was able to be slightly more acceptable to its banana curve bullet trajectories and insanely silly train derailment. The film is still flawed and lacks the warmth and character of "Shoot ‘Em Up," but when it comes to mindless action films, "Wanted" is more than passable entertainment and if you can check your brain before putting the 5 inch disc into your DVD or Blu-ray player, then "Wanted" can make for an entertaining two hours.

James McAvoy is the headliner for "Wanted" and is joined by Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. Oddly, Freeman is not featured on the packaging cover for the home video releases and it is likely that most people have no clue who James McAvoy is. The Scottish actor is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Mr. Tumnus in "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," but put forth good performances in films such as "The Last King of Scotland" and the television miniseries "Band of Brothers" and "Children of Dune." Jolie and Freeman are far higher profiled actors and I will typically watch anything starring Morgan Freeman. Jolie is far more of a tabloid story these days than a serious actress, at least in my opinion.

In "Wanted," Wesley Gibson (McAvoy) works in accounting for a very large woman who constantly nags him and causes him to go into fits of anxiety. His best friend is sleeping with his girlfriend and through all of his years of life he has amounted to nothing. His father had left him when he was just born. However, his life takes a dramatic change when an assassin named Fox (Jolie) approaches him at the pharmacy counter while getting his anxiety pills. He is informed that his father was a great assassin and had just been murdered and that his father's killer is in the store and looking to kill him. A wild ride in a Dodge Viper and a large number of bullets introduce Wesley to the world of the Fraternity, which is led by Sloan (Freeman).

Wesley is told that his anxiety is actually a rare condition where his heart rate begins to beat at roughly 400 beats per minute and he gains improved sight and reflexes and that time nearly stops. Never having fired a gun, Wesley is put under duress and shoots the wings off of three flies. This was the third of many insanely silly and over-the-top moments in the film, but it is only a teaser of what is to come as Wesley is trained to become a super assassin by Fox and a number of other members of the Fraternity that includes a Russian known as the Repairman (Marc Warren), who loves rats and the knife training and wielding Butcher (Dato Bakhtadze). He is slow to learn at first, but soon embraces his role and trains to kill the rogue Fraternity assassin Cross (Thomas Kretschmann) who killed his father.

I'm not going to get any further into the story as that would betray some key plot twists, but I do want to point out two of the moments that occur in the film without their context to help further illustrate how far this film goes to betray reality. There is a moment when some of the characters square off in a bullet train that crosses a very high gorge between two tunnels. Somehow, the survival rate is extremely low, but the key characters escape mostly unscathed. Another moment that never quite sat well was the dump truck full of explosive peanut butter digesting rats. It was silly when just one rat was exploded in a scene foreshadowing what was to come, but how exactly can you get that many mangy rats into a dump truck and have the time to put watches on so many of them? Like I said earlier, you need to check your head at the door.

"Wanted" is fun, but requires the audience to completely suspend the notion of reality. In three positions I have achieved the NRA rank of Distinguished Expert and earned Marksman with a pistol in the United States Army Infantry. Therefore, I am a bit offended by the thought of putting a banana curve into a bullet and being able to accurately hit a target in the manner shown by the characters in this film. It was a little more difficult for me to swallow some of the action sequences in the film and I just rolled my eyes when three consecutive bullets collided in mid-air (technically six bullets as it takes two to make a collision). Even with my distaste of bullet physics, I found a lot of mindless fun within the frames of "Wanted."

Director Timur Bekmambetov marks his Hollywood debut with "Wanted" after the entertaining "Night Watch" and "Dark Watch" played well in his native Russia and Kazakhstan. Those films had similar elements to "Wanted" and Bekmambetov certainly has a talent in making over-the-top action films with secret sects of characters. He understands how to keep the pace moving in a high octane action film, but provides meaningful breathers for the character that adds just enough exposition to inform the audience. There are certainly films out there that are faster paced and "Wanted" is a far cry from the frenetic pace of "Aliens," but far more engaging than a number of other action films. The style of touch of Bekmambetov is one of the true assets of "Wanted" that keep this film from being an abysmal and idiotic picture.

I'm not going to categorize "Wanted" as being a good picture. I'm not even going to say it is a good film. That would suggest the plot and story are far better than what they really are. However, there are guilty pleasures in life that are just fun to watch and "Wanted" is one of those pictures that is very entertaining, but misses out on the qualities that define a classic. Sometimes it is nice to just sit back and watch a popcorn film and that is where "Wanted" succeeds, as a picture that just wants to have fun. You are going to roll your eyes more than once, but a couple times the thought is going to pop into your head that something you just saw was pretty cool. The story is lacking. The acting won't impress. However, the action and style make up for some of the film's shortcomings.

Video:

"Wanted" arrives on Blu-ray with a good looking 2.35:1 widescreen picture that is mastered with the VC-1 codec. I had been impressed with the look of the film on DVD and was more than satisfied with the Blu-ray release, although I felt the DVD was comparatively better. During my DVD review I had pointed out how strong the rat invasion sequence looked and it is again an interesting scene to witness. The shimmering of water on skin stands out in high definition and Mrs. Pitt's shoulder blades looked very nice in high definition if you feel Jolie is the epitome of a female. Colors are nicely rendered with strong saturation. The red Dodge Viper in the beginning of the film looks very good. There are plenty of scenes in the film that takes place in the shadows and black levels and shadow detail are both excellent. The print used to cull this Blu-ray was in pristine shape and no issues from the source materials can be found.

Audio:

My favorite part of the "Wanted" soundtrack is the Danny Elfman song "The Little Things" and I wondered if this is how Oingo Boingo would sound today. Regardless of my fascination with the film's theme, the English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 mix sounds quite good and highlights the over-the-top action sequences contained in the film. French and Spanish DTS 5.1 mixes are also provided with subtitles in English SDH, Espanol and Francais. "Wanted" is an aggressive and enveloping mix that really comes alive during the car sequences and shoot outs. The first shoot out with Jolie and the following Viper chase sound very good and showcase that all six channels are used heavily with strong .1 LFE response and clean imaging across all channels. The score by Elfman and other rock songs contained in the film sound very good and bleed nicely into the rear channels. This is an active and impressive sounding motion picture.

Extras:

The Blu-ray release of "Wanted" is delivered with two discs. The first disc contains the film and all of the bonus material, while the second disc is a DVD that includes a Digital Copy of the film that is playable on either PC or Macintosh based systems. The DVD release contains its "Digital Copy" for a limited time, while it appears to be a permanent addition to the high definition release. Comparing the two releases, some of the features contained on the DVD are missing from the Blu-ray release and one short item has been added. Some modern technology has been applied to this next gen release and some of the features have been juggled accordingly and a few new items have been added to make this the better release of the two.

The disc contains features that require either Profile 1.1 or Profile 2.0 capable Blu-ray players. The U-Control functionality on the Blu-ray disc includes four items. The Motion Comics shows eight scenes from the original graphic novel with animated frames and dialogue and music. It is intriguing for fans of the film to enjoy. These are spread over six of the disc's chapters. Scene Explorer occurs in chapters 3, 7, 15 and 17. This utilizes the multi-angle capability of Blu-ray to allow the viewer to enjoy the selected four action scenes from up to three different angles and is quite fun to play with. Assassin Profiles is contained in fourteen of the twenty chapters and provides additional information on characters in the film. Finally, a Picture-in-Picture video commentary provides behind-the-scenes information and interviews in fifteen of the films chapters. Some of this information is quite good and presented nicely for those with Profile 1.1 capable machines.

The Blu-ray release also includes functionality for BD-Live. The first time you select the feature it requires a short load time and then reboots the disc after it downloads the BD-Live information. Oddly, my disc did this twice. The BD-Live functionality contained for "Wanted" involves My Chat and allows the viewer to chat with friends if an Internet connection is provided for the Blu-ray player. A USB keyboard is a nice item to have if you intend to use "My Chat" and makes text entry a whole lot nicer. If you want to use this functionality, I would like to stress my belief that the Playstation 3 is currently the best overall player on the market for playback of special features.

The ‘Extras' begin with the uninteresting My Scenes bookmarking and get better very quickly. The hours of bonus materials are nearly all showcased in high definition with the exception of the Extended Scene (1:59) that shows more footage of Wesley debating with his mentors of shooting a dead woman for target practice. They discuss shooting puppies. The Alternate Opening (2:38) is a Blu-ray exclusive that shows piles of dead bodies and hints at the magical loom of doom. This opening would have ruined the big surprise. Cast and Characters (19:59) is your typical EPK styled documentary and finds most members of the cast discussing their characters and their involvement with this film. There were some nice behind-the-scenes moments interwoven into the production. Stunts on the L Train (2:31) looks at how the bridge jump from the L train was achieved. It is brief, but is a nice breakdown of the scene.

The next three features deal with the effects of the film and adapting the original graphic novel to the big screen. Special Effects: The Art of the Impossible (8:28) is the last item on the first menu page and is your typical making-of featurette and shows some nice sequences being shot, but doesn't provide a lot of depth. Groundbreaking Visual Effects: From Imagination to Execution (8:06) looks more of how digital effects were handled in post production to create the film's stunning action sequences and is a nice addition to the previous featurette. Event the rats were CGI'd in this film. The Origins of Wanted: Bringing the Graphic Novel to Live (8:05) finds the "Wanted" graphic novelist Mark Millar interviewed about the film and looks at how the story was translated to the film. I found it intriguing that Millar grew up believing Superman existed because he saw an old black and white photograph of George Reeves in costume.

Three items are included on the second menu page if items and a few bits are absent from the Blu-ray release. Through the Eyes of Visionary Director Timur Bekmambetov (9:04) found the cast and crew patting the film's director on the back and was your typical EPK making of feature where the director is given in incredible amount of credit. The guy seems like a good director, but I won't base my opinions on this featurette. Wanted: Motion Comics (13:55) shows eight scenes from the original graphic novel with animated frames and dialogue and music. It is intriguing for fans of the film to enjoy. Finally, The Making of Wanted: The Game (10:01) is a long form advertisement for the pending video game adaptation of the film. My complaint with this release is the Danny Elfman video for "The Little Things" is not included on the Blu-ray release.

Closing:

"Wanted" is one of those films where I struggle to call it a good film, but I have no problem telling you flat out that it is an entertaining picture. The premise of the film is culled from a graphic novel which was written by an author that once believed in superheroes. That should be enough to tell you that the action is very much over the top. The direction of Russian auteur Timur Bekmambetov is very good for an action film and Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman are comfortable in their roles and the relatively unknown James McAvoy performs adequately in the film. I still prefer "Shoot ‘Em Up," but "Wanted" was enough to keep me interested in the often silly story and I was curious to see how everything would pan out. Aside from a couple teeth groaning moments, I enjoyed myself. I want my Danny Elfman video, but otherwise I felt the Blu-ray release was better than the DVD release. It has a good looking picture and solid sound along with U-Control and BD-Live support.