Wanted: The Moral Universe
by Andrew Klavan*Spoilers to Wanted*
My DVD player broke over the holidays so I’ve fallen a little behind in my watching of mindless action drivel, but hurrah, the new machine is here so I did catch Wanted over the weekend. Film-wise, it’s more or less okay, the first half an entertaining Matrix ripoff, the second half a lot of so-so CGI bang-bang. But idea-wise, it’s pure fascism—although Angelina Jolie shows us her butt so maybe fascism’s not as bad as we thought.
James McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson who’s not man enough to stand up to his overbearing boss or stop his girlfriend cheating with his best friend or do just about anything. Then Jolie shows up and teaches him how to be a super-human assassin and kill people. Doesn’t matter which people—although we get the feeling they’re unsavory because one is a businessman and another rides in a limo and smokes a cigar—it’s the killing that makes him macho. Also, he decks his best friend who’s so awestruck by Wesley’s new testicular magnificence he gasps, “He’s the man.”
Since the nature of the dead don’t matter, we’re treated to action scenes in which hundreds of innocent people are destroyed, but we’re not supposed to care. Just pay attention to the Nietzschean Super-Men fighting center screen, children, they’re the only ones who matter. The film concludes with Wesley committing the quintessential fascist act—delivering a bullet to another man’s brain. Then he turns to the camera—to us—and says, “Well, what the f*** have you done lately?” Yeah, he’s the man, all right.
I mean, this is not the usual romance of the outlaw—Scarface or Sopranos or something like that. Romantic though they are, those stories take place in a real world where evil has both a physical and a spiritual toll. In the world of Wanted, the killing alone has significance, the good or evil of the killer and victim count for nothing.
There’s a lot of this garbage going around lately. In the semi-cool video game Assassin’s Creed, you play a killer during the Crusades who takes out both Christians and Muslims—because they’re both violent, aren’t they? In the great Clint Eastwood’s act of late-life madness—those silly Iwo Jima pictures—we root for the noble Japs over the corrupt Yanks—because isn’t war truly the only villain? And, of course, on the network news this week, the armies of a peace-seeking democratic Israeli state do battle with the low-life Islamo-fascist terrorists who want to annihilate both them and us—and the newsmen are rooting for the terrorists because… well, that’s the question: because why?
Aren’t they, like, missing something? Hm, what could it be? Oh wait, wait, I know: it’s the moral universe! Funny, I had it a minute ago but now I can’t find it anywhere. Hey, maybe it fell into the logical gaps between my relativism and my multi-culturalism.
But don’t worry. If there’s one thing about the moral universe it’s that you can always count on it to turn up again. Usually with a vengeance.
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54 Comments
You’re kinder to Wanted than I was. For me, watching the film was like witnessing one of the ways that a society implodes.
I know that the film wasn’t intended to be anything other than trashy fun, but did it have to go to such ugly extremes?
I applaud you. By the end of the film I was so jaded I couldn’t muster the mental energy to give it half this much analysis. It’s fun in the sense that I like watching Angelina Jolie explode things. But really, the movie is better if watched on mute.
I have to be honest and say that I had never read anything by Andrew Klavan before EMPIRE OF LIES, but he is fast becoming one of my favorite writers.
His words echo what I have been trying to convey to my family and friends for, well, for as long as can remember. Thankfully my family have listened, it’s just nice that somebody who has a much larger audience (not to mention an enjoyable and powerful way with the English language)is out there fighting the good fight.By the way if anyone out there has not read EMPIRE OF LIES I suggest you pick up a copy you will not be disappointed.
Good post, I do think you missed something (in your post about it): there is most certainly an idea behind the killing. They believe that they have to kill these people in order to improve the world, make it a better place etc. Whether this is because the person has done something or will do something wrong, they don’t know. In other words, the idea is to sacrifice living and breathing human beings – of whom you don’t know whether they did anything wrong – in the belief that this will somehow ‘help’ society as a whole. It’s the ultimate extremist (especially communist) idea; kill a few possibly innocent people for ‘the collective.’
Impressive, particularly working in the bit about Assassin’s Creed. Generally video games avoid relativism and try to go for a good versus evil paradigm, but that game is an exception.
I’ll be checking out Empire of Lies, as I am impressed with Mr. Klavan’s work here.
Loved ‘Empire of Lies,’ my first fiction read in a long time. Drew is the man. We have no idea how lucky we are he is with us.
Funny how many people who make horribly violent movies, often tied with cheap sexy thrills, are all in favor of big government and taking away self defense.
My husband would like to have his name tattooed where “BillyBob” used to be on Angelina’s arm. I guess I will be seeing this movie soon. lol
“Jonathan – January 11th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
“watching the film was like witnessing one of the ways that a society implodes”
Sure. That and when you turn on the tube one day and see former President Clinton in a celebrity endorsement ad for Viagra or condoms or some such.
Ugly flick that made Mr & Mrs Smith look like 400 Blows. (And no, Berkeley/liberal arts grads, that’s not the follow up to Deep Throat)
Have you read the comic that Wanted is loosely based upon? Trust me, they cleaned it up for the movie.
Am I the only one creeped out by Jolie’s skeletor arm in the poster?
The lady is pretty, but in DIRE need of a double cheeseburger.
Based on this review, the only thing worthwhile in the film is Angie’s butt. As a profoundly heterosexual woman myself, I can now add Wanted to my “Gee, I’m Glad I Didn’t Waste My Time or Money on That Stupid Movie” list. Thx, Mr. K.
P.S. Angie is a trollop, too.
Justine,
Tell him she may be hotter than you, but you aren’t a psycho skank. Tell him any name tattooing that gets done, needs to be him having YOUR name on his heinie.
I truly can’t watch her movies. I spend the whole time wondering if she is truly as bat crap crazy as I think she is, and I always reach the same conclusion. Yes! Totally, completely bat crap crazy. So, I can never focus on what’s she doing on screen.
What I’d like to know is what weird-o thinks Jolie is in the least sexy these days, she looks like a refugee from a concentration camp.
Dang it, women should have curves not sharp corners.
“I can now add Wanted to my “Gee, I’m Glad I Didn’t Waste My Time or Money on That Stupid Movie” list.”
You and me both, texacalirose. I was turned off the very moment I saw the trailers and there was no way the potential of Angelina Jolie in the nude could lure me in. It reminded me too much of The Matrix; the visual effects serving as eye candy (in this case, too much candy) and your disbelief needing to be put under near-permanent suspension.
Going through Mr, Klavan’s article reaffirms why I didn’t bother to see it (something for which I didn’t even need reaffirmation!).
I just saw this two days ago and enjoyed it for what it was, pure summer popcorn action. If anything it showed the evils of a more liberal mindset where a select group decides what’s best for everyone else but hypocritically fails to apply the same standards to themselves. It also showed the soul-crushing effects of putting the collective over the individual.
I have to say though, the scene with the train really put me off – how many scores or hundreds of people died just for a plot point? That was the film’s only real misfire.
I never saw it, but I read the graphic novel it was based on and there was no morality to it. In the book they weren’t a group of assassins, but rather a group of supervillains that had banded together, either killed or forced into hiding all the superheroes, and then divided the world between them. So, no, they weren’t killing ‘bad guys’, they were the bad guys.
The graphic novel is actually pretty decent although completely warped, but had no interest in the movie.
“Wanted” was a mean movie, but it didn’t have the mental depth to articulate real fascism. It seemed to have been created by 14 year olds for other unsupervised 14 year olds.
Now. When “Watchmen” comes out –if they keep to the original comic– then you’ll see real live fascism.
They definitely should have had Angelina blow away a couple of dirty welfare recipients or environmentalists.
Typical Hollywood – it’s always the noble money-making capitalist who gets it.
Joe Melnick – January 11th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I have to say though, the scene with the train really put me off – how many scores or hundreds of people died just for a plot point? That was the film’s only real misfire.
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Joe the count was 28 score and 13.
That’s unnofficial of course as I had to consult this astrological expert/voodoo woman palm reader on the French Quarter. So it may not be entirely accurate. Don’t tell that to the palm reader though – - it would go badly. She’d put a hex on my avatar in the virtual reality sim.
Actually TBINSTL, while the Soviets have become safe villians in Hollywood now, during the Cold War, there were just as many films claiming moral equivlance between Washington and Moscow, or with the US as the villians.
Klavan is wrong about Eastwood’s Iwo Jima films, but generally right about the unpleasant nature of Wanted (a film directed by a Russian, by the way). I would not call the film fascist but rather, much like the truly vile comic book it is based on, a nihilistic work, celebrating violence and cruelty for its own sake. Even Communists and Fascists see violence as a means to an end, rather than an end itself.
(Let’s try again)
Actually TBINSTL, while the Soviets have become safe villians in Hollywood now, during the Cold War, there were just as many films claiming moral equivlance between Washington and Moscow, or with the US as the villians.
Klavan is wrong about Eastwood’s Iwo Jima films, but generally right about the unpleasant nature of Wanted (a film directed by a Russian, by the way). I would not call the film fascist but rather, much like the truly vile comic book it is based on, a nihilistic work, celebrating violence and cruelty for its own sake. Even Communists and Fascists see violence as a means to an end, rather than an end itself.
That movie was so boring, I didn’t notice the commie/fascist angle, it felt like they were ripping off the Matrix and Fight Club. And those movies came out 8-9 years ago.
The irony is in HOW Hollywood screwed this story up. Its based on a comic book series where super villains rule the earth (after murdering off all super heroes years before). While the movie portrayed Wesley and the assassins group as having a somewhat cosmically-noble purpose (doing the will of “the universe” by killing men that will eventually do great harm), in the comics, Wesley and the rest were at best amoral, or at worst outright evil. And the series writer, a cynic if there ever was one named Mark Millar, is one of the high priests of “dark and gritty” in comics. That goodness and heroism stuff is boring to him. So its funny that Hollywood tried to throw a candy coating on his story by adding a veil of “doing the right thing” to a character that was more or less modeled on DC’s Deadshot, an assassin that murders for profit, with no pangs of regret whatsoever.
I always appreciate it when a critic takes the time to let me know what’s going on in a film “idea-wise”
Ummm…Duh. And it’s nihilism, not fascism here. The film is actually about fanaticism. For it to be about fascism the characters would have to be both corporate, and governmental.
For a fun double feature, watch this back-to-back with Kung Fu Panda. They’re the same movie. Seriously.
Thanks for saving me a trip to the library. Those of you who can’t resist gawking at Jolie, I’d suggest you borrow the DVD from your local public library (where it’s FREE), rather than spend your hard earned cash on this crap. Paying for crap leads to tinseltown feeding us *more* crap. My 2 cents.
I’m a 100% heterosexual guy, and Jolie leaves me cold. Skinny, skanky, weird, and old. Not a good combo.
There’s mucho hotter women on TV for free.
“I blame it on the fall of the Soviet Union. Pretty much everybody could agree on them being the “bad guys”.”
Oh really? Democrats and leftists do say this today, citing the good old days when “the world was united against Communism.” The problem is that the world was never united against the Soviets, especially not Washington or Hollywood. Those who were strongly anti-Communist were often called “McCarthyist.” Ted Kennedy collaborated with the Soviet Union to try and bring the conservatives (like the Reagan administration) into disrepute. And Hollywood writers created imaginary story lines where the Pentagon or CIA were perpetrating some horrible atrocity or grand injustice– when at the same time the Kremlin and KGB were actually! committing those atrocities and injustices. Why would they do this? See the post above.
Props Mr. Klavan for bringing up Assassin’s Creed. Video Games as the new form of entertainment media is something I have great interest in, and the semi-revisionist history that went into that game has often been a topic of my friends and I (all 20-somethings). It should also be a warning to conservatives that the left has already claimed its spot in that medium…
Personally I think video games are the best form of media where conservatives can make their stand (not only because many situations in games where the enemy is just NOT going to be interested in “talking” but because the field itself has less “artsy” types, primarily made up of programmers and other, one could say, left-brainers).
As for Wanted, I think it was pretty lame, and Mark Millar(the creator) rubs me the wrong way.
Mr. Klavan,
Excellent review. And the best last line I’ve read anywhere in a very long time.
Wanted was one of those movies where I hated everyone. What’s worse is the person I hated the most was the hero/main character. I think it was a double shot, the character and the actor who played him both came off as unlikable. At the beginning he starts out as total wimp and ends the film as an insufferable jerk. You wanna see this guy get kicked in the pants not get the girl. I will even give another movie that came out last year better props then this, that was Jumper. At the beginning the character starts out as a jerk but by the end of the film even he starts to realize that you can’t just take or do whatever you want that there are consequences to your actions.
A terrible film. the sad thing is that its violence lacks wit. On top of it all, the film physically looks horrible, except for the money shots.
Btw, in that poster, is that a Desert Eagle at the end of her twig-arm? Hollywood seems to love this gun, no doubt for its size and intimidation factor. The real world, eh, not so much. I’ve read the absolute worst reviews from gun users, including retired cops and shooting instructors. Seems like every seasoned pro has nothing but disparaging remarks about the Desert Eagle’s mechanics. Pretty much bottom of the barrel junk.
i went to WANTED for the sole purpose of watching Brit actor, James MacAvoy. I took my 14 year old niece and we both had an enjoyable day at the movies. The adventure, excitement, and pure entertainment of WANTED was thrilling. i am a retired teacher and discerned no covert political message. My niece hears and sees more violence in the media and sees/hears more about sex in her 9th=grade school than she saw in this film. *(there was one scene where we squirmed a bit but this did not detract from the entire film) my sister and i want to instill good values in our teensagers in a world that keeps pressuring them to make bad choices. There was little in WANTED that could influence her more then the Internet or TV networks.
Nothing wrong with a cannon, just make sure you’re aiming at a big target
Though in reality judging from that picture the recoil from the deagle would probably shatter her bones.
Wasnt interested in seeing the film as it is, after reading this article i’ll make sure to take a pass on it.
Straight white males who smoke. The ultimate villains. Mm hm.
“Nihilist” was the term that came to mind for me. I went to see this because I heard it was stylistically interesting.
I think the movie is probably a pretty good window into the fantasy life of a clinical narcissist.
There’s also a storyline in the movie about ‘fate vs. destiny’.
it comes up alot, and is a common theme in many movies. Been awhile since I watched this(summer), but from what I remember Jolie beleives in Fate and the other guy being brought into the group, beleives in Destiny. I’d have to watch it again(which its not good enough to warrant it), but there was alot between that and to me, Destiny won out in the end and the Fate crowd ended up Dead, with Jolie killing herself
I always wonder why corporations are considered worse than say, the government of Zimbabwe. Corporations produce goods, certainly with some pollution, and often make mistakes. But they don’t murder people for not voting for them.
Miserable movie.
Not this time, this time its a gaudily dressed up 1911.
I agree that Hollywood has a weird obsession with the Desert Eagle, it is a silly gun. I wouldn’t call it “bottom of the barrel junk”. Its a well made pistol, but its not a piece that is reliable enough for military/police/self defense work. Its basically a hunting gun (and in that role still falls a bit short unless you keep it immaculately clean).
Ok and the “You’re posting too fast” thing is getting real old … its been at least 24 hours since my last post.
Glad someone else has noticed this “posting too fast” thing, Zundfolge. I’ve been away all weekend and when I tried to post for the first time this mOnday morning, I got the “You’re posting too fast” message. This place isn’t going to get too many comments if you can only post onmce every three or days or whenever.
Guys, don’t take the “posting to fast” personally. It just means that several different people are trying to post at the same time. Just hit the “go back” icon on your computer and try to re-post. It might take one or two retries, but it works.
I divide things into good ones and bad ones. Some say I am simplistic but really, those people are convoluted.
Just to elaborate on what others have said, the comic book this was based on would help with the understanding of the movie. In this comic world the super villains won, all the heroes are dead. The movies characters are villains and the main character is the son of a villain. They recruit him into a life of villainy, sex, etc etc. There is no good guy in the story. Some villains are worse than others but they are all bad. As villains are inclined to do they fight amongst themselves. They ‘really bad’ villains end up losing to the ‘kinda bad’ villains.
Anyway, as I was saying before that “You’re Posting Too Fast” message interrupted. . . .
Jolie is supposed to be working on a movie version of ATLAS SHRUGGED, a project the Hive will almost certainly condemn as “fascist.” Because in Liberal Bizarro World, fascists support a free market.
Andrew, I too was struck by this movie. What bothered me was the inherent “end justifies the means” argument. Pure, cold blooded murder is okay…if it helps the collective good. Whatever happened to, “How can a moral man keep his morality in an immoral world”?
The worst part is that I discuss this in my American History class (I am a public high school teacher), and the majority of my students would side with the “ends justifies the means” argument. This worries me.
I couldn’t get past “bend the bullet” in the TV commercials. I suggest whoever came up with that bit get together with some friends and try it out for real.
So WANTED is nothing but a loud, dumb, idiotic action film that grates the part of the brain that handles logic?
Sounds like perfect material for Mike and the Bots!
With their new thing called RiffTrax, I have a feeling they will take on this POS soon. Too irresistable.
Hello – these folks are taking their orders from a LOOM? A freakin’ BEDSHEET?
Sure, no problemo. Morgan Freeman sez it’s ok…
I enjoyed Wanted quite a bit.
Sure, Freeman’s crew were fascists of sorts — they strayed from the true path (if you believe the story) and made their own rules as to whom lives or dies. However, the hero at the end did not commit the “quintessential fascist act—delivering a bullet to another man’s brain.” The hero acted both from self-defense (clearly Freeman’s character was stalking him) and also took down a killer. Indeed, he probably saved many innocent lives.
I wasted good money on this travesty of a film. The worst part, aside from the message of “go and kill people like I do to have some worth” at the end, is the absolute stupidity of the characters. Every character has the mental capacity of an rock. For example, the main character blindly follows and never questions the people who beat him senseless throughout the entire movie (I believe this is called torture porn). Also, that the assassins believe the confessed liar at the end makes absolutely no sense. You’d think they’d do some simple research before resorting to such a messy end.
The bits with the train and the rats were completely unnecessary as well.
I expected more action from this film and instead I got torture porn and a lot of “curving the bullet” with not much else. Even the the altered reality coupled with superhuman abilities, seen at the beginning of the film, quickly falls by the wayside.
On the whole, the film can be summed up in two words: disappointing and disgusting.
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