So this is how Angelina Jolie affords all those babies and pregnancy leave. Occupying the middle station in the holy trinity of comic book, movie, and videogame, Wanted was predictably trashed by critics this summer. Adapted from the graphic novels by Mark Millar and directed by that flashy Russian dude behind the Night Watch/Day Watch movies, the flick racked up $134 millionevery ticket sold, Im sure, to teenage males who wish their lives could be more like that of James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland, Atonement). Meaning: your wretched cubicle life is cast off by the discovery that you have hidden superpowers that permit you to join a secret society of assassins led by Morgan Freeman, who says, You have the blood of a killer flowing within your veins. Dude! Sign me up! Sure, it sounds a little crazy, and McAvoy expresses a few doubts (like Neo and Luke Skywalker before him). But who are you gonna believe: so-called reality, or the gaunt, tattooed, silently sneering/leering Angelina Jolie? Released today on DVD, Wanted is a testosterone fantasia of warped, slo-mo bullet trajectories, cars leaping over cars (and onto buses, and into trains), a mash-up of The Matrix and Office Space that also cribs extensively from the Chuck Palahniuk canon of thwarted male rage (particularly Fight Club). Its the kind of good, dumb fun that doesnt even slow down for a sex scene (wah?), where every gunshot is between the eyes, and self-defense consists of shooting other bullets mid-flight with a satisfying CGI squish. And you know what? Id watch it over Changeling any day of the week. Scarecrow Video, 5030 Roosevelt Way N.E., 524-8554, www.scarecrow.com. $34.98 (Universal Home Ent.). 11 a.m.-11 p.m. BRIAN MILLER
Tue., Dec. 2, 2008
