Especially if it is in retrospect. I mean, it’s OK (like Jay says on the podcast recently) to make a movie into two parts or something, if you write it that way. But after-the-fact branding of sequels and trilogies is just dumb.

If they make a trilogy count me out. The movie was preposterous and amateur…I figured out all the twists half way through the movie and as secret assassins they make too much freakin noise! It’s a wonder why they are still so secret after all these years!!

Also I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Morgan Freeman actually bored in a movie…He usually makes everything great but man that was a awful performance. James McAvoy was OK but not my choice for a action star and even though I enjoyed some of Jolie’s scenes they were really contrive and she really had nothing to work with.

It was really just a plain dumb movie. Bleeaaaahhhh!!!

“I immediately realized why I didn’t really like the Wanted movie all that much: because the comic is waaaaaay better.” -Rian

I haven’t seen the film yet and contrary to what Sean might think about some of us; I form my opinion after seeing the film. But based on the trailer though, I doubt my opinion will change. I may enjoy it (I can value entertainment over emotional substance in many instances, but I’d rather have both), but I know if they just stuck with the source it could have been the best of both worlds. Just imagine, it would have started a new Hollywood Gold Rush. (“Forget superheroes! They want supervillians!” would be the screams heard from many money hungry execs across Tinseltown.)

I’ve been drastically wrong on trailer impressions before, but then again those did not have source material I had already enjoyed (Hustle & Flow, There Will Be Blood, and Into the Wild are ones just off the top of my head). The reason I’m skeptical of enjoying this was briefly summarized when Sean wrote that they “basically ditched the idea of him being a true villain (in the comic he actually rapes and kills innocent people for fun), and his character arc already seems complete.” Yes, that was one of the reasons Wanted was so acclaimed among the comics crowd and the very thing the writers have seemed to seek out and destroy.

If they did the sequels like the Alien Quadrilogy where you had a different director&writer for each movie, then maybe I’d have an interest. Even though I liked Wanted, count me out for two more of these movies.

If you’re not interested in the characters, and if the action isn’t presented to you in a way that feels intense, then no matter how many kills, decapitations, whatever, are happening on screen, they can end up feeling boring. With Speed Racer the batshit insaneness of it and cartoonish fun was right up my alley and I just smiled the whole way through, with Wanted, well, Speed Racer I think spoiled me. In comparison it seemed downright serious and not very fun, and Jolie’s case, kind of sexless, which is weird considering her character is based off of Catwoman. The whole thing felt less like a readers digest of other cool films and more a tired pastiche of other films, kind of like how Equilibrium, to me, is simply dumbed down Matrix and Orwell, as written by a 13 year old.

So with Wanted, yeah, there’s a lot happening on screen, but it felt so distant, disconnected, just there. I didn’t care about anything that was happening. No matter how many cars were flipping, bullets were curving, ‘fuck you’s’ were uttered, it was almost an out of body experience feeling where the movie was playing in one world and I was in another. I didnt’ care. I was bored. Shoot Em Up did the same for me when the carrot jokes got tired and it was all gunplay. 300 did the same for me after the first stylized battle sequence when it went into lather rinse repeat mode. I said over on the RowThree board part of it may be a revelation to me that I find gunplay the most boring of all weapon based mischief, but still, I can only blame the director for not giving me anything to be excited about.

I would not like to see another Wanted movie. I would, however, love to see a second Wanted comic book mini-series.

yes