{"id":6097,"date":"2008-12-19T13:46:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-19T18:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/?p=6097"},"modified":"2022-10-17T20:17:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T00:17:09","slug":"every-day-is-exactly-the-same-for-james-mcavoy-in-wanted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/every-day-is-exactly-the-same-for-james-mcavoy-in-wanted\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Day is Exactly the Same for James McAvoy in Wanted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Nine Inch Nails song “Every Day is Exactly the Same” is so thematically perfect for the early part of Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted<\/em>, that it seems to have been composed especially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Wanted<\/em> is weighed down by an overly extensive backstory that goes back thousands of years, and an approach to violent spectacle that borders on the sadistic. It’s hard not to sense a trend, as I’ve had the same complaints about a couple other movies I happened to see recently: Hancock<\/a><\/em>, Speed Racer<\/a><\/em>, and Southland Tales<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy play assassins with superhuman abilities, directly tied to the action choreography and special effects: the power to “throw” bullets and slow down their perception of time in order to move superhumanly fast. All of this is framed in close and medium shots, a bad choice for an action film that ought to display its stunts and derring-do in full. It’s more visually disorientating than even the hyperkinetic Speed Racer<\/em>, but the slow-mo sequences paradoxically render the proceedings rather boring — even when something that ought to be impressive is happening, a bullet sliced in twain by sword.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"James
James McAvoy, Common, and Angelina Jolie at the country fair<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It’s difficult to feel sympathy for a protagonist who, when causing a literal train wreck, resumes his murderous mission instead of aiding the countless innocent bystanders he has turned into collateral damage. In the end, Wesley smugly asks, “What the fuck have you done lately?” So, becoming a superhuman assassin has granted Wesley self-actualization: he’s free of his botched relationship and dead-end job, he’s physically fit, and he shoots people in the head for a living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Wanted<\/em> flirts with the nihilistic themes of David Fincher and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club<\/em>, but without the irony. What many surface-level admirers of Fight Club<\/em> seem to forget is that while it initially seems to celebrate its unnamed protagonist’s decisive break from the supposedly stifling bounds of society, his self-help credo attracts the wrong kind of followers and spins out of control to its ultimate logical end: anarchy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nine Inch Nails song “Every Day is Exactly the Same” is so thematically perfect for the early part of Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted, that it seems to have been composed especially. But Wanted is weighed down by an overly extensive backstory that goes back thousands of years, and an approach to violent spectacle that borders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2],"tags":[1516,35,1375,2071,578,2033],"class_list":["post-6097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2-stars","category-movies","tag-1516","tag-action","tag-angelina-jolie","tag-common","tag-james-mcavoy","tag-timur-bekmambetov"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/wanted-angelina-jolie.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-1Al","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6120,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/falling-in-love-at-the-end-of-the-world-in-wim-wenders-submergence\/","url_meta":{"origin":6097,"position":0},"title":"Falling in love at the end of the world, in Wim Wenders’ Submergence","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"October 6, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"???? Ladies, if your fella isn't returning your calls, maybe he's a secret agent on a tippy-top secret mission for queen and country. Fellas, if your girl isn't liking your posts, maybe she has zero bars because she's doing science stuff on the ocean floor. 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I should have listened to the myriad critics and friends who warned me off Oliver Stone's Alexander... it is indeed quite bad. Everything you've heard is true: impossibly long, unintelligibly edited (can anyone explain to me Alexander's supposedly brilliant scheme in the first battle? 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Energetic, funny, quotable, and scattered with fantastic montage sequences. The moment when Johnny Lee Miller sees Angelina Jolie for the first time is choice. And check the surreal imagery and avant-garde editing of its characters' erotic nightmares -- seriously; more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hackers","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/hackers.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/hackers.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/hackers.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/hackers.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/hackers.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1830,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/state-of-play\/","url_meta":{"origin":6097,"position":4},"title":"Cool Britannia: David Yates’ BBC Miniseries State of Play","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"June 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The 2003 BBC miniseries State of Play is nothing less than six straight hours of intelligent drama, liberally spiced with suspense, action, and tasty plot twists. The entire epic tale is delivered by a veritable plethora of British Isles telly & film who's who: writer Paul Abbot, director David Yates,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"State of Play","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/state-of-play-2003-featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/state-of-play-2003-featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/state-of-play-2003-featured.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/state-of-play-2003-featured.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/state-of-play-2003-featured.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5868,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/bad-santa-utterly-wallows-in-its-bah-humbug-tone\/","url_meta":{"origin":6097,"position":5},"title":"Bad Santa utterly wallows in its bah-humbug tone","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"June 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"This from the director of Crumb and Ghost World? The big pleasure of Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa is definitely that it utterly wallows in a bah-humbug tone, a welcome tonic to the seemingly perpetual holiday season. I write this in June, and I'm afraid to so much as blink, lest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Billy Bob Thornton and Lauren Graham in Bad Santa","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/bad-santa.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/bad-santa.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/bad-santa.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/bad-santa.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/bad-santa.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6097"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6477,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6097\/revisions\/6477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}