Reviews – Page 25 – Blue Ink Alchemy

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IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Jumper

This week’s IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! brought to you by a generous donation by Amanda d’Adesky. Thank you for your support!

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/jumper.mp3]

Jumper is an existential treatise on the nature of the conjectural power of teleportation. The schizophrenic, random nature of the story is paired with a tendency towards awkward shot composition, layered with somewhat passable CGI to create an experience not unlike the one an individual would have if they did, in fact, discover they had the aforementioned power. It’s a breathtaking overarching statement on the nature of human existence that…

Wait a second, no. No, that wasn’t intentional. This flick is just a mess.

Get used to shots like this – they try to justify the whole film’s existence.

Jumper introduces us to young David Rice, a 15-year-old kid with a crush on a girl and problems with a bully. His halting attempt to chat up his would-be paramour has the bully acting the way bullies do, and David ends up under an iced-up lake staring down an early grave. He jumps – that is to say, teleports – into the local library, soaking wet and very confused. He learns to control his power and does what I think any 15-year-old would do: robs a couple of banks to pick up awesome toys and eventually settles into a swank pad. Apparently his jumping ability also gives him the power to grow up looking like Hayden Christensen. Eventually, however, the fun comes to an end when a group of quasi-religious para-governmental hunters called Paladins, lead by a white-haired Samuel L. Jackson as ‘Roland’, come looking for David. Are they mad that he’s robbing banks? Do they want to harness his power for their own ends? No – they just want him dead because “only God should have this power.”

Don’t worry, any potential religious fanaticism on the part of the Paladins or cool young adult rebellion courtesy of the Jumpers is completely undermined and utterly without teeth, since Jumper is way too busy trying to look cool. The supernatural nature of the protagonist’s ability is simply a vehicle to take the camera from one exotic location to another. Now, as a method for promoting travel, Jumper works. I wouldn’t mind seeing Rome or Egypt or Tokyo myself someday. But I wouldn’t want to go with the guy we’re supposed to be rooting for in this film.

‘Rachel, I know you might be talented, but people are here to see us make out.’

There are two problems with him. Blame for the first falls on Hayden Christensen. It could have been assumed, in the wake of the atrocious Star Wars prequels, that the portrayal of Anakin Skywalker, supposedly one of the greatest and most virtuous Jedi before his tragic fall from grace, as a selfish emotionless wooden childish dunce was less the fault of Hayden and more that of writer/director/creator/deity/nutjob George Lucas. Seeing Jumper, however, it seems that David & Anakin are completely interchangeable. Both of these characters are uninvested in the lives of others, completely without strong emotion or drive and do nothing to connect with the audience. This problem is underscored heavily within the first fucking minute of the movie with David actually narrating for us, describing his experiences rather than showing us and letting us figure it out on our own. And he calls the audience ‘chumps’. This kind of thing worked in ‘Wanted,’ but it doesn’t work here. Of course if I’d paid for a cinema ticket, I’d feel very chumpish indeed, sitting there in the dark picking metaphorical splinters out of my ear.

If I could digress for a moment: Mark Meer, voice actor for the male Shepard player character in Mass Effect has been called somewhat unemotive in comparison to his female counterpart, Jennifer Hale. The opening narration of Jumper by Christensen is so bland, wooden and lacking in life that Mark Meer’s voice acting seems downright bombastic in comparison. Interchangeable as the characters of David and Anakin might seem, though, David is clearly more of a deliberate delinquent rather than pretending to be a guardian of truth and justice, which leads us to our second problem, a problem I shall illustrate by quoting fellow critic Confused Matthew.

“Our supposed hero and protagonist is an asshole. I mean he doesn’t listen to anybody, he’s not very nice, he treats everyone around him like shit and he only ever thinks about himself!”

This is the exact same thing Matthew says about Anakin Skywalker in the second two Star Wars prequel films. He also says it about young Simba in The Lion King, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Hayden’s portrayal of David raises one of Jumper‘s many questions: Other than taking a little delight in agreeing that robbing a bank without chance of normal authorities catching you sounds like fun, how are we supposed to empathize with, cheer for or even like this smug, arrogant, womanizing, selfish jerkass?

Jumper‘s questions are not the kind posed by films intended to raise them during the narrative (“Who is Keyser Söze?” for example) or as a result of the narrative’s themes (“Is the HAL 9000 a computer or a living being?”). They’re problematic questions, areas of weakness in the movie’s premise, plot and pacing. Why does the Jumpers’ ability sometimes cause massive structural damage and sometimes not? Even when just jumping himself, David sometimes breaks walls or causes ceilings to collapse, and other times he just bamfs from one side of the couch to the other without so much as jostling a cushion. Also, why do Jumpers engage in short-range combat? You’d think that with the ability to teleport any distance to any location at any time, any Jumper worth their salt wouldn’t stick around long enough to get involved in a punch-up. If you had this ability – okay, if I had this ability, and a Paladin was en route to tase me into submission before gutting me like a fish, my plan would be to jump right behind him, grab him by the shoulders, jump 30000 feet straight up, let go of the Paladin and jump back to the ground. Unless parachutes are standard issue equipment for them, that Paladin’s going to have a very bad day, and even if he does have a parachute, by the time he touches down I’d be halfway around the world. The character of Griffin does get a little creative with his ability here and there, including a scene with a sports car that’s one of the few spots in the movie where I found I was enjoying myself, but for the most part the Jumpers seem incapable of directly fleeing the Paladins or dealing with them in guerrilla-style warfare. Maybe they’re just in awe at the sight of Roland’s ridiculously white hair.

Also, why the fuck was Big Ben chiming the hour when it was clearly showing only half-past?

He’s just as upset about that hairdo as I am. Seriously, guys, what the fuck?

I didn’t think Jumper could get any worse. And then, at the very end, Kristen Stewart appears. Now, it’s not her fault that the Twilight “saga” is the way it is. I didn’t get mad when I saw her, I honestly felt sorry for her. Jamie Bell & Rachel Bilson may be the standouts in this exercise in random trendy blandness, but theirs isn’t the only potential going to waste. You can almost feel Kristen’s inevitable backslide into paper-thin contrived super-stardom, and there’s something tragic about that, because when she was getting started as an actress there was potential there that I fear Stephenie Meyer might have strangled in the crib. Maybe I’m wrong and The Runaways will kick all kinds of ass. But I’m wandering off my point. Or maybe I’m jumping!

Remember Push? That film did everything Jumper does – angsty male lead, cool superpowers, exotic locales – but does it better and in a less random and confusing way. If you’re looking for something somewhat new and different in this genre, go watch Push. It’s intelligently written, directed without contrivance and the actors actually seem somewhat interested in what’s going on. Don’t watch Jumper. It’s an ill-conceived, poorly-executed mess. It adds nothing to the superpower action genre other than more evidence that Hayden Christensen is half Ent. The writing is poor, the acting is sub-par, the special effects induce yawns instead of excitement and the whole thing feels like a very cynical dollop of bland, generic action to placate the masses. At least when I play Halo, my hands occasionally tense up from holding down the fire button as I march Master Chief invincibly into incoming fire, which reminds me that I’m involved in something that’s supposed to be entertaining. Jumper requires nothing from the viewer, promises nothing and delivers nothing. It’s pretty much a waste of time, and if you were to jump anywhere, it should be far, far away from this movie.

Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Gamers: Dorkness Rising

March 5, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 1 Comment

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Currently, the prevailing definition of the word “gamer” is “someone who plays video games.” However, the label has an older connotation. For years, gamers were people who populated the tables of college dorm basements, comic store back rooms and Mom’s dining room, one of them hunched behind a screen describing unspeakable horrors while the others rolled dice, complained about rulings and flung Cheetos at each other. Thankfully, that hobby is alive and well in the world of testosterone-charged first-person shooters and time-destroying MMOGs. With love in its heart and tongue firmly in its cheek, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising shows us how these “real” gamers live and play.

Produced by the Dead Gentlemen, Dorkness Rising is a follow-up to the original film called The Gamers. However, it’s not necessarily a sequel. The story centers on Kevin Lodge, a man struggling to create a unique campaign world for Dungeons & Dragons and writing up its first module. His regular gaming group, however, is frustrating him at every turn due to their shameless power-gaming rules-mongering ways. To fill the ranks of their small group, one of the players – arrogant, by-the-book Cass – enlists his ex-girlfriend, Joanna. It turns out that Joanna, like Kevin, is more interested than the story than the rules. The perspective shifts between the players and their characters, and as the adventuring party embarks on their quest to retrieve the Mask of Death from an evil necromancer, the gamers themselves begin to grow in their understanding of both their characters and the reasons they play these games.

At first blush, there’s a lot of similarity between The Gamers and Dorkness Rising. It has gamers rolling dice, yelling at one another and making off-color jokes at each other’s expense. If you’ve never sat down for a session of Dungeons & Dragons before, you’ll get a pretty good idea of how they tend to proceed. There are plenty of jokes about both the nature of table-top role-playing games and the people that play them. Some of these might fly over the heads of a general audience, but anybody who’s rolled dice to determine a hit against a goblin’s armor class can tell you they’re right on the money. Beyond the scenes and jokes themselves, the film’s probably been responsible for an explosion of conversations that begin with someone saying “Dude, something just like that happened to me when…”

The surprising thing about Dorkness Rising isn’t the humor, however. This film has got a lot of heart. It parodies the lives of gamers and plays up the hilarity of some of their arguments out of love rather than spite. The story has a lot to say about the nature of friendship, the way people immerse themselves in their hobbies and the process of storytelling itself. Despite the ways in which certain characters behave, the film never resorts to mean-spirited or blatantly gross-out humor to get a laugh. That isn’t to say that this comedy is high-brow, by any stretch – there’s bawdy jokes aplenty. But the jokes never really exist for their own sake. Like action that has the audience riveted in a well-directed film, the comedy in this story grows organically from character interaction and growth.

The only real drawback to this film is that it’s aimed at a very specific audience. A lot of the jokes, references and situations will be utterly lost on anybody who hasn’t ever played a table-top role-playing game before. And beyond that, there isn’t a whole lot to say about Dorkness Rising. Chances are, if you’re at all connected to table-top gaming, you’re aware of this film and you know if it’s up your alley or not. While there’s a lot to like about both of the films in The Gamers series, beyond their good-natured humor and the surprising quality of the storytelling in the second one there isn’t a whole lot to say about them. They’re funny and clever and aimed straight at table-topping dorks everywhere. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then by all means pick these up on your Netflix queue. But not everybody’s going to enjoy the same kind of thing. That’s just as true in the gaming world as it is when it comes to movies. I remember this one time I was playing a rogue in a Planescape campaign and…

Game Review: Mass Effect 2

March 1, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 10 Comments

(NOTE: May contain minor spoilers. Readers be ye warned!)

Subtitled THIS TIME IT’S PERSONAL. (Right, Harbinger?)

Here we are, at last. I know quite a few people have already played and reviewed this game. Some are even playing it again. I actually went back to the original game to start a new playthrough to span both games, and while I know there will be some repetition in dialog and encounters, the story’s solid enough to withstand repeated playthroughs. That’s more than you can say for a lot of games out there today. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Mass Effect 2 opens with a shocking curbstomp battle between Commander Shepard’s intrepid vessel, the Normandy, and a mysterious attacker that can see the plucky ship despite its stealth systems and blasts through its defense systems like they weren’t there. Shepard manages to get his crew to safety before he’s blown out to space and dies. The pro-human semi-terrorist “by-any-means-necessary” organization Cerberus scrapes Shepard off of the nearby planet’s surface and spends two years resurrecting him. The Reapers, extragalactic Big Bads introduced in the first Mass Effect, are still a major threat despite the government’s denial of their existence. They’re not helping humanity in the disappearance of their colonies, either, so Cerberus turns to the reconstructed Shepard to undertake a suicide mission through an unexplored mass relay to uncover the source of the abductions and send back more information on the Reapers. Because who better to send on a mission where everybody’s likely to die than someone who’s been dead already?

Stuff I Didn’t Like

We got this instead of a vehicle. I hope you’re all happy.

Wait. Shepard dies? He wasn’t in a coma or suspended animation and presumed dead by the galaxy at large? I found that to be a little far-fetched. Sure, technology in the future depicted by Mass Effect is pretty advanced, and being rebuilt by Cerberus explains why you can implement so many cybernetic upgrades to Shepard as the game goes on, but the whole resurrection angle pushes the limits of believability. Shepard doesn’t really seem that bothered by it, either – there’s no crisis of faith or any real rumination on what thoughts are evoked by the experience of coming back from the dead. Even the more spiritual team members don’t think to ask, which would have been a good opportunity for the player to do a little role-playing in choosing to start a deep theological conversation, or give a Renegade-oriented “None of your damn business” response.

Oh, and the story problems don’t end there. We do learn more about the Reapers, as to what motivates them and why they do what they do, but it still doesn’t explain why it wasn’t explained to us previously. Did Sovereign go for a stream of verbal crap in the style of Matrix: Reloaded‘s Architect just to mess with human heads, or was it embarrassed that the motivations of its supremely powerful machine-race were so basic and organic-like that it needed an extra layer of obfuscation? Or had the writers not figured it out yet themselves at that point? Maybe they had but they wanted to keep us guessing. Don’t get me wrong, the writing in this game isn’t bad, not by a long shot. More on that later.

The only other major insurmountable problem I had beyond the story issues was the scanning mini-game. I touched on it previously and it appears that my initial assessment was on the money. Here it is again to save you some time:

Some of the complaints about the Mako sections of the first game were their length and tedium. Scanning in the sequel takes just as long and… is just as tedious. Another Mako complaint is, obviously, it’s handling. So if scanning is meant to be an improvement over the Mako, the controls should handle smoothly and be a delightful diversion from ducking for cover like we’re playing Gears of War, right? Sorry, that’s not the case here. The reticle moves slowly over the surface of a world when you’re scanning, and unless you want to risk missing a particularly rich pocket of Element Zero, you need to drag it across every square mile of the planet’s surface.

Now one thing the scanning mini-game does well is convey the feeling that one is in space. And I don’t mean it hearkens to Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. No, it hearkens more to 2001: A Space Odyssey or video recordings of NASA operations. That is to say that it’s lengthy, quiet, procedural and really rather dull.

Stuff I Liked

“Gosh, I hope you weren’t fond of your face, buddy.” *ZAP*

Let’s move on to better news. The other major complaint about the first Mass Effect was the inventory system, which stuffed your interstellar backpack with a plethora of ultimately useless junk that you then needed to sell one at a time to the nearest vendor. BioWare tossed that stuff into the Mako when they shoved it out the airlock, and the system of managing equipment in the sequel is extremely streamlined. Rather than switching weapons, you upgrade the models available to your team members. While these upgrades must be purchased with resources gathered by the aforementioned scanning malarkey, you won’t be thinking about that tedious stuff as your new Normandy takes you from one gunfight to the next.

Speaking of fights, the combat system in Mass Effect 2 is also somewhat streamlined. You can map more powers for easy use, you don’t have quite as many to manage, squad commands are broken a bit more easily and fights are bit faster-paced. The measures of protection on your foes, as well as their scale, can vary from encounter to encounter which can lead to breaking up the monotony of the cover-based shooting. The multiple map buttons mean you can address a particular enemy’s defensive measure at a moment’s notice, provided you don’t just pound them into submission with a stream of mass-accelerated death or your favorite physics-altering biotic ability.

Like the previous game, this one is rendered very well, with the environments and technology providing a great sense of immersion. The voice-acting, for the most part, also draws the player into the experience, as they travel from one exotic locale to the next to recruit members for Shepard’s suicide mission. And being able to customize your armor’s look was a nice touch, along with the fish tank & Space Hamster you could add to your cabin on the Normandy.

Stuff I Loved

Thane: “Shepard, what is this ‘DeviantArt’ site you sent me?”
Shepard: *whistles innocently*

BioWare might be a little shaky in the story department, but one of their strengths is their characters. Mass Effect 2 gives us a diverse, interesting and well-written cast, from the penitent and quiet assassin Thane to Subject Zero, who uses aggression and profanity to conceal a deeply wounded soul. The conversations Shepard has with these individuals give the game a surprising amount of depth for what could easily have been a Gears of War clone with a few RPG elements. While this might come as no surprise to long-time fans of BioWare’s games, the purchase of the company by EA could have caused some concern. However, as much as EA might mess with other aspects of a game – DLC or DMA or some other acronyms – it appears they’re leaving the story alone, and thank the Enkindlers for that.

Being able to import your Shepard from the first game gives the experience a fantastic sense of cohesion and immersion as well. It’s surprising the amount of continuity exists between the two games, from the outcome of major events to minor encounters you frankly might have forgotten about in the intervening years. Returning characters are a welcome sight, even when they’re hated foes and especially when they’re beloved party members. There’s a real sense that time has passed since the end of the first game, and every life you touched then, even in passing, has been changed because of your influence for better or for worse.

The last thing that really made this game enjoyable for me was the changes to the conversation system. It’s been said that quick-time events should be an integral part of gameplay and not thrown in arbitrarily. The Paragon/Renegade interrupts are not mandatory for you to finish a conversation, but setting one off not only flows well with the conversation but often yields pretty spectacular results. On top of that, conversations in general flow more naturally, with characters moving as they speak, camera angles changing dynamically during conversations and subjects reaching far beyond the usual “What did you think of the last mission?” or “Do you think I look cute in this armor?” fare.

Spoiler

“I believe the organic saying is: ‘BOOM. Headshot.'”

Bottom Line: Are you a fan of the first Mass Effect? Buy this game. Do you like sci-fi shooting action? Buy this game. Looking for a relatively decent story with solid, well-rounded characters? Buy this game. Got a void in your life that only a Space Hamster can fill? Buy this game. Have I made it clear yet? No? Go buy Mass Effect 2. It’s well worth the money, the time and the frustration of the scanning mechanic. Hell, I plan on playing it again, not once, but at least twice. I mean, we’ve established previously that I’m pretty damn dull, but at least something like this is more exciting than Star Trek Online:

Game Review: The Adventure of Link

February 27, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 1 Comment

Runner-Up in Review Wars II, over at the Escapist.

The first of many sword-in-the-ground opening screens.

I cherished my golden cartridges as a child. The original Legend of Zelda was one of the first Nintendo games we owned and I played it like it was going out of style. My sisters and I mapped out every dungeon for each other, as this was back in the days before GameFAQs or the Internet or internal combustion. It was innovative and challenging, and when a sequel was announced the children in the house were understandably excited. This was, as I’ve intimated, a more innocent time before I realized how disappointing sequels could be when they simply retread the ground covered by the first installment – but even now, I’d have been impressed by it.

Ten-year-old me: “This is a Zelda game? GNARLY!”

Instead of rehashing the top-down interface of the first game, the designers took it in a different direction, a similar direction to Castlevania. The Adventure of Link is a side-scrolling adventure-RPG, full of the familiar foes from the first games seen from this new perspective. I had no idea moblins were taller than Link. Anyway, replacing the sub-items such as the boomerang and bombs is a magic system, and Link has moves at his disposal other than “slash” and “toss my sword with power.” Other than that, there’s dungeons that need to be conquered in a specific order, a mysterious Big Bad at the end of it all and a damsel in distress named Zelda who needs rescuing.

Stuff I Didn’t Like

Wait, what? Already?

There’s a ‘lives’ system. It’s perhaps the most frustrating thing in the entire game, considering that neither the first game nor any one following had one, for good reason. In the first game, when Link got rocked, he’d be sent back to the beginning of the dungeon or the starting point in the overworld map. Here, there are ‘checkpoints’ that exist within the dungeons and the overworld encounters that will put you back to the start of the current room or scene. But being sent back to that checkpoint after stabbity death or being set on fire costs you one of your three lives. Once they’re gone, the game is over and you have to start from the beginning. While you’re able to continue so you don’t lose special items or experience gained, spending hours slogging through mazes only to lose your last life just as you’re about to down that frustrating boss can require a herculean effort to choose “Continue” instead of “Fuck This.”
You can find little 1-Up dolls scattered throughout the world to help the lives situation, but there are two problems with this. First of all, unlike the heart and magic containers that permenantly boost the amount of life or magic you have, the 1-Up dolls do not permanently increase your total number of lives. They just give you an extra life to be snatched away by a jerkass Ironknuckle or a misjudged jump. Secondly, some of the dolls are on obtainable after a long sojourn across the world and fighting legions of creatures that might possibly lose you one of your lives anyway. So these, like the lives system to which they are related, are completely arbitrary.

Stuff I Liked

I hate fighting Ironknucles. I don’t hate them, just fighting them.

This game is challenging. The Ironknuckle enemies in particular can be a real struggle, and in some case come across as more challenging than some of the ‘boss’ characters. There are a couple bosses you can defeat just by jumping repeatedly on their head (provided you have the ‘downthrust’ maneuver) and Ironknuckles will just raise their sheilds as you sit there hopping up and down on them like a flea on a hot griddle. What I like about these foes and the overall difficulty curve of this game is that it’s consistent, gradual and, as I said, challenging.
Like the previous game, the ‘temples’ are laid out in a fairly linear fashion that help you figure out where to go next. The map is vast, and the environments are varied but it doesn’t get confusing. Like many modern games, the optional items (‘side quests’ if you will) require a little digging, but the construction of the temples and their connection act as a guide on their own without the need for a FAQ or online guide – neither of which existed in 1989.

Stuff I Loved

Yes. Yes you are.

This was the first Zelda game and one of the first console RPGs to have NPCs that gave information, support and even quests as you progressed through the game. Instead of defeating just destroying monsters to earn new powers, you need to do some tasks that might seem menial to learn new magic spells. Some of the inhabitants of the town are interested in helping you while others just want to go about their business. And some young ladies even invite Link into their homes to restore his health. Of course older women do it too, so it’s not as sexy as it sounds.
There are some good musical bits in this game, for a relic of the 8-bit era. The temple music in particular stands out. It’s been recycled a couple times for the Smash Brothers franchise, and it’s some of my favorite music from the Zelda series.
Despite being laid out completely differently from the original Zelda, it feels like high fantasy adventure through and through. It established a lot of the tropes similar games follow to this day, and actually holds up after all of the years. I recently fired it up through the collector’s edition on the GameCube, and it wasn’t just nostalgia that had me enjoying it. To this day, it’s a solidly built, engrossing, challenging and very fun game.

Bottom Line: If you find yourself frustrated by the convoluted plots and overhyped CG of modern games, fire up the Adventure of Link. It’s a refreshing trip down memory lane that’s still a blast to play.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Wanted

February 26, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

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I think it’s safe to say that just about anything can be adapted into a film. Even in this little obscure corner of the Internet, quite a few adaptations have been reviewed as they’ve passed through my mailbox or browser. Starship Troopers is the adaptation of a novel. The Mutant Chronicles adapted a tabletop role-playing game. In The Name of the King had something to do with the video game Dungeon Siege . …I think. These adaptations run the gamut of being generally faithful to their source material, to preserving the spirit of the original while rewriting a good portion of it for one reason or another, to bending the franchise over a rail and gleefully going to town while making obscene gestures at the fan base. Wanted falls into that middle category, adapting a comic book for the big screen in way that might not be terribly recognizable to the comic’s fans but is still charged with enough of the original’s spirit to not descend into an incoherent disappointing mess. Like X-Men: The Last Stand did. I still have nightmares…

If anything can disperse the aforementioned nightmares, it’s this. ‘Wanted’ indeed.

Wanted was a short-run comic book series penned by Mark Millar about a down-on-his-luck office schlub named Wesley Gibson who has his hum-drum life of corporate drudgery interrupted by a sexy foul-mouthed assassin named Fox who informs him that his father, the greatest killer of super-beings who ever lived (appropriately dubbed ‘The Killer’) has died and left his son a substantial fortune. To earn it, Wesley must embrace his destiny of super-villainy, overcome years of self-deprecation that anybody who spends any time in a cubicle can tell you is a side-effect of office work and kill a whole lot of super-heroes. There are a lot of super-powers thrown around the pages of Wanted, but Wesley’s power is, simply, making people stop breathing. With bullets. Lots and lots of bullets.

The film adaptation does away with the super-hero motif, making it more a straight-forward badass action flick and less an examination of what a super-powered world would be like if the super-villains had won the seemingly endless struggle between good and evil. Wesley is still an office schlub, Fox is still hot, and there are still lots and lots of bullets. However, instead of joining a fraternity of super-villains, Wes joins a fraternity of assassins who use their work to ensure the tapestry of fate does not come apart at the seams. They get their orders from a magic loom. And no, I have no idea how that thing works.

I wish I looked that good working a desk job.

Much like the comic book, this movie is less about the “what” and more about the “who.” Wesley as a protagonist is someone with whom just about anybody can relate, and like his blonde comic-book counterpart, we actually find ourselves cheering for him as he breaks free of his corporate shackles, learns to curve bullets and embarks on a journey to discover who he really is, because that quiet mousy pushover in that cubicle is not him, or who he wants to be. This journey of self-discovery is a bit more violent than most, but it’s still a journey worth taking.

The other thing Wanted has going for it are moments that worked just as well in the comics as they do on the screen. There’s the moment where Wesley shoots the wings off of flies, moments where he lashes out against his co-workers, the moment where his pseudo-mentor Morgan Freeman drops the F-bomb and the moment where Angelina Jolie as Fox walks around dressed only in her tattoos. Some new elements that take the place of super-villainy have moments of their own, like the moment where Wesley curves a bullet for the first time or uses a car in a very interesting way to get a shot on his target. They’re the kind of moments that make me smile, even upon reflection.

Angelina Jolie and the luckiest car in the world.

The biggest problem Wanted suffers from is that these moments are not necessarily directly related to one another. They are, instead, strung together with a plot that has all of the tensile strength and cohesion as a slightly frayed string of dental floss. In losing the super-powers, Wanted also lost a lot of its color and charm. The graphic novel had me rolling or cheering just about every other page. The film manages a few laughs and a smile or two, but isn’t quite the same. It is, in essence, the generic corner store version of your favorite soda pop – it’s still fizzy and tastes kind of similar, but you can tell the difference.

Seriously, hearing ‘Red’ drop his Precision F-Strike on us is worth the price of admission.

Wanted wavers a bit on the line between recommended watching and something you should skip. What puts it just barely in the positive column is the very self-aware nature of the film. Unlike some other adaptations out there, it’s ashamed of neither its source material nor the idea of taking the piss out of itself. Cleolinda Jones, in the preface to her Wanted in 15 Minutes, says that this film is “outrageous and stupid and funny and knows it“. James McEvoy is having just as much fun here as he did playing Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, if not more. Of course, in Narnia he didn’t have the chance to make out with Angelina Jolie. I had fun watching Wanted, and reading the graphic novel again afterward was even more fun in light of this adaptation, which makes it a success for me and earns a recommendation. It’s not the greatest badass action film out there – Shoot ‘Em Up is a better self-parody of the genre – nor is it the best comic book adaptation film to date. That honor belongs to Iron Man and the only thing endangering it is coming out on May 7th. Because if anything is going to dethrone Iron Man, it isn’t going to be Wanted – it’ll be Iron Man 2. And I cannot wait for that.

Tag: Reviews (page 25 of 36)

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Jumper

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Gamers: Dorkness Rising

Game Review: Mass Effect 2

Stuff I Didn’t Like

Stuff I Liked

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