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SCREEN SCENE: 'WANTED' AN ENTERTAINING ACTION FLICK

By Michael Calleri

"Come with me," said the spider to the fly, but in this case, the spider is a glamorous femme fatale named Fox -- no last name, just a vixen (played with sultry nonchalance by Angelina Jolie). The fly is nerdy, cuckolded accountant Wesley Gibson (played with twitches and tremors by James McAvoy).

"Wanted" is based on a controversial graphic novel (comic books for adults). The film is given a dazzling, glossy look by visualist Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, creator of the most successful Russian film franchise in history, the "Night Watch" series.

Hollywood came calling and we now have "Wanted," Bekmambetov's wild ode to special-effects bullets that have lives of their own. If there's something in the wanted's way, the assassin can shoot the weapon so that the bullet will curve around the blocking object -- as if by an unseen force -- and rip into the target. Head shots are better because they enhance the director's visual goal of seeing the bloody kill as if it were a slow-motion work of art, not madness. Precision action ballet, if you will. Sam Peckinpah would be proud of what he has wrought.

The premise is relatively simple, although as it develops it will veer into a roiling vat of cliches, because screenwriters Michael Brand, Derek Haas and Chris Morgan aren't as clever as the graphic novel's creative men Mark Millar and J.G. Jones. Therefore, you have a great idea because of Millar and Jones and some incredible visual brinkmanship thanks to filmmaker Bekmambetov.

What you don't get is much of a tale told with words, but instead find yourself watching gleaming cars, streaking bullets and over-the-top stunts. Toss in a lot of brutality, knives as even more lethal weapons than guns, and an unsettling sense of amorality, and you've got a very hard R rating. I should also note that Prague, Czech Republic, stands in for Chicago -- and not very well -- which also meant a lot of American jobs went across the Atlantic.

"Wanted" tells the tale of an apathetic person, a workaday grunt, a genuine nobody, who will be transformed into a highly polished enforcer of justice. Wesley Gibson is a 25-year-old, disaffected office-cube drone. His harridan boss regularly chews him out. His girlfriend is sleeping with his best friend, and this friend gets Wes to buy the condoms. It seems this meek little Everyman will live a plodding life that will amount to nothing, until a lean, mean killing machine enters his life.

Enter Fox, sex oozing from every pore. Her body gleaming as if she just had a rub-down. Her full lips dangerous. Her myriad tattoos alluring, yet frightening.

It turns out that Wes' estranged father may have been murdered, an act that links the lad to a group called The Fraternity, which stretches back 1,000 years and has something to do with a group of weavers encoding fabric with a historical hit-list. Messages with the names of potential murder victims are passed down through the centuries.

Fox needs to turn Wes into an assassin, because the old man was one of them. So he's spirited away to what looks like a castle on Lake Michigan, where his training begins.

Different members of The Fraternity have different tasks. After being beaten to a pulp, Wes learns how to handle, then aim, then fire a weapon. He studies how to walk on top of a moving train and how to stunt-drive. He also learns how to fly through the air as he propels his body from one car to another, guns blazing every moment.

By recruiting Wes into The Fraternity, the cabal's current, enigmatic boss Sloan (the always laconic Morgan Freeman Jr.) hopes to unlock the young man's dormant powers -- the cliche "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" works here. Wes must avenge his father's death -- shades of "Hamlet." His orders are those of fate itself.

There are too many mysteries and unbreakable codes to fathom to really get a sense of what the heck is going on. So the moviegoer just rolls with the punches. The action sequences -- good car chases, a much better train wreck -- should keep you awake.

Wes slowly enjoys his new lifestyle, even if he doesn't quite understand what's going on. Of course, there will soon be more secret murder codes revealed in those magic fibers and, unsurprisingly, Wes finds himself faced with the biggest quandary of all: "Kill the ones that brung ya."

By the time the menacing characters are standing in a circle staring each other down, you may wish you had gone to see "Kung Fu Panda," where cute animals stand in a circle and stare each other down.

Thanks to McAvoy's charm and Everyman quality, the audience identifies with him. His is a good performance. Jolie has little dialogue, but she says volumes with her body. Freeman has done terse to death, and it's officially tedious.

Through the course of the movie, Wes will waver between the newfound heroism foisted upon him and his emotional need for vengeance. Should he just kill everyone -- Fox, Sloan, the rest of the crew -- to escape? Or does he like the attention, and his new marksmanship talents, and his chance to partake of strange milk baths? Has he reached nirvana? He now controls his own fate.

Terence Stamp adds a bit of classy convolution to this relatively entertaining mix.


"Mongol" may be the first film you'll ever see in the Mongolian language. Don't let that turn you off. The movie is an epic adventure about the birth and rise of a young man named Temudjin, a lad who would choose his bride as a pre-teenager, be forced into slavery, and eventually rise to power as the unifier of the Mongol tribes and the man known as Ghengis Khan. The film shatters all the myths about the barbarian Khan -- myths propagated by white Europeans -- and presents a sweeping, breathtakingly beautiful, compelling story about family and tribes, emotions and heartbreak, dreams and determination.

The movie is directed by noted Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov, who co-wrote the screenplay with Arif Aliyev. There is superb music by Tuomas Kantelinenm and truly gorgeous cinematography by Roggiers Stoffers and Sergei Trofimov. The movie was shot in various landscape-rich environments of eastern Russia, northern China and Kazakhstan, all of these vistas enhancing the seemingly endless treks of the Mongolian slaves, the expertly staged battles and the settlements for homesteading.

"Mongol" is a real treasure that's well worth a visit.


"The Promotion" is a quirky little slice-of-life comedy that takes a look at the lives of certain management-level employees at a large supermarket chain in Chicago, some of whom are vying to be promoted to manage a new store being built in the city.

Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly are trying to maintain an illusion of happy-go-lucky friendship, but company warfare persists.

Director-screenwriter Steve Conrad doesn't quite have a good sense of either satire or irony; therefore, his movie floats along on the good will of some of his actors, including Scott, Reilly and Gil Bellows, excellent as a humorless corporate tool. Fred Arminsen, Jenna Fisher, Chris Conrad and Lili Taylor (her talents are wasted) are also onboard.

The movie has some oddball characters, including a nutbag named Teddy Grahams, whose existence and antics make no sense and are poorly limned by the actor Chris Conrad, whose older brother directed this. The African-American teens who hang out in the parking lot are made to seem annoying, but writer-director Conrad has no way to escape the tinge of racism that hovers around the antagonism toward them. It all comes down to pandering and name-calling, with no character growth or hope of any growth. What's his point?

The always-underrated Scott, with his sweet-natured innocence, saves "The Promotion" from being completely bogged down because of too many unfinished ideas. There needs to be a better framework that would make us care about every character in the same way we care about his.


E-mail Michael Calleri at michaelcallerimovies@excite.com.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com July 1 2008