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Lara Croft: Matrix Raider

The sum of this film's many parts equals a hole
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 25th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Ambition and reality are out of proportion in this mishmash starring stunning Jolie.
Wanted


Directed by Timur Bekmambetov
With James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp, Common and Thomas Kretschmann
What might have been a dark, mordant tale of amorality has instead become the perfect summer opiate for the masses. The much-touted Wanted seemed packed with pedigree: strong cast, rising star director from Russia and an interesting graphic novel by Mark Millar to base it upon. But the final result is a magpie’s nest of borrowings from 1,000 different films, while the ideas and bleak philosophy found in Millar’s original work (which itself isn’t adverse to appropriating material) has been whittled down to referential scraps.
The borrowings in Millar’s graphic novels are more like sly riffs, down to various DC-esque superheroes occasionally drafted to fill panels. Wanted’s world shares much with The Matrix too, as Earth is found to be run by an unseen cabal of uber-villains, collectively known as the “Fraternity.” Falling into this network is one Wesley Gibson, a cubicle drone who, after discovering that his father is an arch-criminal, is prompted to devote his life to assassination. In Millar’s novels, Gibson is the perfect anti-hero, an amoral agent working within a lawless society.
Some of this accidentally makes it into Wanted the film, though here the Fraternity is less universal and powerful. What were masterminds in Millar’s work become nefarious norns in Timur (Night Watch) Berkmambetov’s flick: cogs wholly dependent upon serving the “Loom of Fate.” As for Gibson, he is shunted from soulless to soulful — not a difficult transformation when you’ve hired the winsome James McAvoy to portray him.
The screen’s Wanted is as much ADD-inspired music video (running the gamut from stabbings of rap to Rupert Holmes’ “Pina Colada”) as coming attractions trailer. Indeed, the preview for the forthcoming Death Race that preceded the screening effortlessly bled into Wanted itself. There is little respite in the action, which is full-on, from Willard-like invasions of killer rats to a spectacular train crash a la The Cassandra Crossing, where some of České dráhy’s finest Pendolino rolling stock goes crashing into a cavern (half of Wanted was filmed  in the Czech Republic).
The rest of the film plays out like outtakes from Die Hard, Matrix and, of course, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, not just for the presence of Angelina Jolie’s trademarked frozen pout, but even in the Fraternity being housebroken into a Croftian Illuminati.
Gibson, too, particularly as played by McAvoy, seems to be a character cut from the final print of Slackers. After stumbling onto the Fraternity, the 9-to-5 drudge enrolls himself in assassin school, as the head of the Fraternity, Sloan (Morgan Freeman as played by Morgan Freeman), wants Gibson to take out an ex-Frat rogue named Cross (Thomas Kretschmann), who apparently offed Gibson’s killer dad. The former slacker is slapped into shape by his minders, Fox (Jolie), Gunsmith (Common) and a bevy of Russian and Georgian thugs from Bekmambetov’s own stable of stars.
All, however, is not as it seems, and Gibson (saddled with that blasted soul of his) will suffer greatly before the whole saga is wrapped up in the tourettic dialogue and fierce antics of the standard live-action cartoon. Is it, finally, entertaining? As a time-killer, yes.
Yet it could have been more, and should have been more than summer filler, though the preview audience in America that I watched it with was obviously famished for Bekmambetov’s way with leftovers. For them, Wanted was the frosting on their XXL tub of popcorn. But anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Millar’s novels will walk away feeling that this film is finally more promise than achievement.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (25/06/2008):

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