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     So I took the time and braved the crowds this holiday weekend and went and saw “Wanted” this weekend.  While the theater was filled with “too cool and tough for this shit” teenagers dumb enough not to shut off their cell phones, it was thankfully bereft of small children, for whom the movie is definitely not appropriate.

     The movie itself was half decent.  Plenty of action, car chases, stunts, cool effects and an interesting enough story.  For those unfamiliar with it, the movie centers around Wesley Gibson, a neurotic, over anxious, cubicle slave stuck in a life of mediocrity, slaving away for a thankless boss as his girlfriend sleeps with his best friend (sounds like alot of us, I know).  His life changes, when his long missing father, is killed.  Unbeknownst to him, his father was a super-assassin with super power like killing abilities that he himself had inherited.  The group he worked for, “The Fraternity”, suddenly shows up and recruits poor Wesley into their world, and enable him to reclaim his birthright, focusing upon the man that killed his father.  Nobility surrounds the order, as they follow a “Mystical Loom” that tells them who to kill through its “binary code” weave.  “Kill one to save one thousand” is the credo.  Through a brutal initiation and training process Wesley turns around full force, and follows the Fraternity to the ultimate conclusion.  A conclusion of being double crosses, “plot twists”, and hopefully redemption for all.  And of course it all builds up to a final scene that’s supposed to leave you on your feet cheering (which quite a few were.)

     Acting wise, it was all done pretty well, no real complaints.  Angelina Jolie seemed a bit stiff, but she wasn’t exactly given a ton of lines to work with, with her lithe body sporting ever more tattoos being more of the draw (yes you even get to see her ass).  Morgan Freeman was, well Morgan Freeman, hard to find a complaint there.  Everyone else, worked, if not causing any upswell of emotion or calls for an Oscar.  The soundtrack was definitely good, and one I might even buy (can’t argue with any soundtrack that has NIN in it).  All in all, not a bad movie, and certainly entertaining.

     So why don’t I sound all that excited about it?  Because I had read the book long before seeing the movie.  And while the movie is enjoyable, the book is a far, far superior thing, and a completely different story.  Yes, yes, I know, “The book is always better (even if its a comic book)”, but I take specific exception to this case.

     While the book does center around Wesley Gibson (in this case, an Eminem lookalike) who is the self same loser cubicle slave in the movie, and whose father, a super assassin, is killed, leading him into a different life to reclaim his birthright, that’s where the movie fell away.  In the book, it is not some benevolent society trying to save the world, here Wesley’s new life is amongst Super Villains.  It seems, that back around 1986, all the super baddies got together, and Killed all the superheroes, gaining complete control of the world.  Immediately the set about removing all traces of the heroes, and any memory that they ever existed.  They hide themselves, putting into power those that would ensure that the world was left in blissful ignorance.  The greatest trick the devil ever played, was convincing the world he didn’t exist.  And given absolute power, with no recriminations, Wesley does as most would do, he becomes utterly corrupted.  Followed by “Fox” (based on Halle Berry), he proceeds to kill, rape, abuse, decimate anything seen as good in the world.  Followed by, of course, double crosses, plot twists, and an explosive bloody finale.

     My main issue with the translation to movie is, even though it satisfied the original author Mark Millar, is that if falls into the same trappings that Millar himself mocks in the book, often breaking the fourth wall to tell you so.  I understand the stretch involved getting people to buy into the “super-villain” thing, but why not just have them be a cabal of criminals that took over all the power.  I mean, look at the world governments these days, most people already believe they are all a secret group of criminals.  And if you are going to try and sell “hyper adrenalin”, “Loom of Fate”, and “bending of bullets” with pinpoint accuracy, why not leave the soul of the book intact.  Why fall into the same old rut of the “heroic” outcome, and redemption storylines, when the book spent so much time telling you that it didn’t exist anymore.  The same changes the movie made in order to make it more acceptable to the American movie audience, are precisely what the book spends pages telling you that it is all just some sales technique of the corporations to make you feel better about your own pathetic life.  As a movie, yes its enjoyable fun fair, but as a story that you haven’t heard before, it holds nothing on the book.

     And even though it was thrilling to hear Morgan Freeman say “Kill this Muther Fucker”,  it just isn’t “Wanted” if it doesn’t end with: