Wanted, Blu-Ray Review

Wanted is a film loosely based on the comic book series, by Mark Millar, of the same name. Apparently Universal were looking for a comic book film adaptation that would be an R rating (R – Restricted, may contain very strong language or strong sexual content/innuendo, strong explicit nudity, strong violence and gore, or strong drug content) and the Wanted mini-series, with it’s pretty graphic gore fit the bill nicely. Straight off this makes a pleasant change. Usually studios are dumbing down the dark themes and gore in comic book films to make it available to as wide an audience as possible in a bid to make more money. In his Hollywood debut, Timur Bekmambetov (director of the successful Russian films Night Watch and Day Watch) was given the helm as director and a rollercoaster ride of thrilling action begins!

The plot is centered around a young named Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy). He lives a hum-drum life, he works in a cubicle in an office as an accountant with a tyrannical bitch of a boss. His whinging girlfriend is sleeping with his so-called best friend, and he’s on regular prescriptions for drugs to control his panic attacks. Generally he’s a wuss who refuses to stand up to anyone. It turns out that Wesley’s father, who left a week after he was born, was an assassin. He wasn’t just any regular assassin though, Wesley’s Dad was a member of ‘The Fraternity’, a thousand-year-old secret society of assassins who’s descendants have honed their skills over the generations giving them almost superhuman skills and abilities.

When a Fraternity agent (Cross) goes rogue, they send Fox (Angelina Jolie) to recruit Wesley into their ranks. He’s told that his father has just been killed and he was the only fraternity member better than the Cross. As his fathers son Wesley has the potential to be as good, if not better than his Dad. What Wesley has been interpreting as panic attacks are actually part of his super-assassin powers. His heart jumps to 400 beats per minute, flooding adrenalin into his system, heightening his senses to an amazing degree.

After initially being reluctant to join, the scales are tipped during a confrontation with Wesley’s tyrannical boss and he jumps into the Fraternity with both feet. When taken to their headquarters, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), the Fraternity’s leader, explains that they’re not a gang for hire, but that a loom weaves a fabric and sometimes a thread is miss-woven and that 100 years ago a monk found a code in the pattern of miss-threads, a code that spelt out people’s names. The names spun out in the fabric will, at some point, be responsible for terrible acts and so the Fraternity was formed to kill these people, and so they are essentially assassins guided by fate.

Wesley goes through a training sequence, but it’s unlike any training sequence I’ve ever seen, they certainly don’t pull any punches (literally) and training for the Fraternity is a painful and brutal process. Eventually Wesley begins to find his stride and the metamorphosis from wuss to super-assassin is on. With his new found skills Wesley is tasked with tracking down Cross and eliminating him.

As I was totally oblivious to the comics and having read little about this when it was at the cinema I went into this film reasonably blind. If you’re a fan of realistic action and pour scorn on films where the action gets increasingly preposterous then this film isn’t for you. If however you can suspend reality and you enjoy big brash impossible action sequences then this one’s for you. James McAvoy’s star continues to rise in Hollywood and here he’s excellent as Wesley the wuss, I’m just not sure that he’s got the face that you can believe as a ruthless killer. Morgan Freeman also lacks a bit of menace as Sloan, the leader of the assassins, whilst Jolie puts in an excellent performance in a couple of outstanding action sequences. Bekmambetov has borrowed from some of the more stylish action films of recent years, namely he makes good use of ‘bullet time’ slow motion from The Matrix and the fluid gun handling skills from Equilibrium.

The Blu Ray offers a crisp detailed picture that shows the slightly stylized cinematography at its best. Colours are intentionally over-saturated in parts, to show off its comic book origins, and it all looks fantastic in full 1080p HD. The audio quality lives up to the picture quality as well. At times, when the bullets enter slow motion, you can really hear them move across the room in surround sound. The Blu Ray has a 5.1 DTS-HD audio track and those with the equipment to decode it are going to really enjoy it.

The Blu Ray continues with an excellent range of extras that are nearly all presented in HD. There’s an alternative opening that’s worth watching after you’ve seen the film (it gives away a few things too early) as well as a few extended scenes. There’s a cast and characters featurette  with cast interviews interspersed with shots from the film. Stunts on the L train takes us through some of the moves performed on trains. There are a couple of interesting featurettes on the action sequences and special effects and the package is rounded out with a look at the conversion from comic to film and also how the video game was developed alongside the film. The film does have some BD-Live features as well, but these were yet to go live at the time of review.

This is a slick, fast paced action film with a good cast and some excellent, if implausible, action sequences. The Blu Ray package is very strong in all departments, you won’t be disappointed with picture and audio quality and this is the first release that I can remember where nearly all of the extras are also in HD. Thoroughly entertaining and well worth a watch.

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