Was, not "Wanted"

So, some time ago, you all heard me crying the blues about how Universal & Co. screwed up the film adaptation of Mark Millar's supervillain opus, "Wanted". After all, as the image to the right clearly shows, half the fun of that title came from the fact that they were comic book supervillains run amok, right down to their 4 colored costumes and utterly reprehensible behavior. So, when I heard they weren't incorporating any of that into the movie, and really kind of white-washing the characters for the film, I was completely prepared to dismiss this film, sight unseen.

I don't care if it's some of my favorite actors like James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie. (Truth be told, I won't say Angelina is one of my favorites, but she does have talent along with a tremendous sense of global responsibility and I'm occasionally happy to pay to look at her in various states of undress)

I don't care if it has eye-popping special effects and death-defying stunt sequences.

I don't care if it's actually a good movie.

IT'S NOT "WANTED", SO STOP CALLING IT "WANTED"!

OK, now that I've gotten that out of my system..... :-)

This is a pretty f'n cool trailer:

">Wanted Exclusive Trailer

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In short, I'll probably go see it.

But, from now on, it shall forever be known as "The Other Angelina Assassin Movie" (so that we don't confuse it with "Mr. & Mrs. Smith").

Now I don't want to talk about it anymore! :-)

Dead? or Alive?

One of my favorite comics in the last few years was Mark Millar's WANTED, about weakling slacker kid who discovers that he's the heir to the world's deadliest super-assassin and has inherited his father's superpowers as well as place in a fraternity of comic-book supervillains who secretly took over the world in 1986 and made it the not-quite-so-super place we all see around us today.

It's brillant, and wickedly fun, with characters like Shithead, who's literally a living pile of morphing excrement, and Johnny Two-Dicks, a schizophrenic gangster who reluctantly takes his criminal marching orders from his talking, evil superfluous penis. These characters are unrepentently evil - they kill, rob, & rape with total impunity, and the drama comes from watching a total wuss find his true self by getting in touch with his evil side - but still recognizing that, even among bad people, there's such a thing as loyalty, duty, even love.

So, when I heard it was being adapted for the screen, with James MacAvoy, currently starring opposite Forest Whitaker in the incredibly powerful film about Idi Amin, The Last King of Scotland, cast in the lead role, I was VERY excited.

Until today.

When I read the official synopsis of the movie adaptation. See it for yourself here at this link for
SuperHero Hype.

"Mythological Fates"? WTF?!??!?!?!!

Who's brilliant idea was THAT?!

I'll reserve final judgement until I see a trailer, but, suffice it to say, I'm not pleased.

I suppose, once you go beyond a certain budget threshold for a film, the suits assume that no one will pay to see bad people do bad things.

And, to those folks, I have only one word for them:

Eminem.

Who was the inspiration for the visual look for the main character in the comic in the first place!

But I imagine Mark Millar himself has the best attitude about the whole thing:

One thing you WON'T see me doing is bitching. JG and I own this and had the right to keep it from ever being a movie, but we decided to take the plunge and hope for the best. They paid us well and we can only hope they do a good job. Like I said, I'm hopeful. Even if it's nothing like the book in the end (I have no idea), The Shining was nothing like the book and was still great. I wish them nothing but the best.

Anyway, read the comic. It's excellent.