Poster Talk: Wanted

Wanted: Six Dollars Back

Or that's what my sis, the veteran gamer says even before we've left the cinema. On hindsight, I suppose this poster should have warned me:

Firstly, Angelina Jolie is NOT the main character in the film, in spite of her taking up two thirds of the poster. Those of you who have some communication studies background should be able to deduce this as poster as being a sneaky attempt to milk the crowd with a well-known sexy A-list star, regardless of actual screen time and plot.

Like the poster, the film didn't seem to require more than a superficial level of acting from the cast. Jolie just has to look sexy and mysterious all the time, which shouldn't take much effort from her, and McAvoy seems to just have to say a particular four letter word while doing the narrative and dialogue all the time, which I suppose, doesn't take much effort either. The only thing that probably needed work was looking buff for the screen. Still, it's a slick movie. Too slick in some ways. The gun fights are cool, but at the expense of screen time that would have been better off dealing with character development. The plot twist was really cliched, and came too late into the film to be properly resolved. I mean, yes, this is an action flick, so there doesn't need to be much character development, but to the point where I don't feel anything for the characters??? Enough said here.

Before I pysch everyone who reads this into thinking "sucky movie", Wanted isn't actually down in the pits yet. It's an average-ish sort of movie, but I admittedly don't think I'll tire of watching them (meaning the cast) curve bullets around bits of meat and each other. Those were some of the coolest scenes involving slow-mo bullets since The Matrix, and that's saying something, considering how the rest of Wanted was so completely lacklustre.

On another point:
Trust the Japanese to come up with a poster that defies the usual Hollywood advertising conventions (no Angelina Jolie in it!).

Images sourced from: http://www.worstpreviews.com/review.php?id=818