"WANTED" movie - HERE BE SPOILERS

[RainDog]

I went to see this with my son b/c he asked me to and b/c it was advertised as the "new Matrix." Thought it might be fun.

well, at least for me - I guess I didn't totally hate the movie, but there is no way I would ever want to see it again.

Maybe I'm just getting too old, or maybe I just don't have enough blood lust, but the graphic violence seemed like some kind of sadistic porn. For parts of the movie I stopped looking at the screen and instead looked at the corner of the wall where the screen stopped so that I could only see that this or that had stopped. I don't think watching ppl get their faces punched into ground beef is interesting or entertaining. This was far beyond any boxing match you might ever see, even one in which someone's ear is bitten off.

Okay, I know this one came from a comic book. However, every movie must have some sort of internal logic that can make you believe in the basic rules of that world. The internal logic of this one is this: there is a omnipotent loom that spells out names of people in hidden code that are the targets for vigilante justice BEFORE they commit a crime... to prevent a worse crime. If they were going back in time, I could maybe get behind that one, but as is, it's sort of like Bush world, and that's repulsive to me.

Now, where did this magical loom come from? Who the hell knows. Apparently in another crazy millennial era, a bunch of weavers got the call from god on a loom. that was moved from western europe, apparently, to Chicago. The entire BASIS for the plot spins on the idea that the loom makes a prediction and tells the "fraternity" to kill someone - and if the loom had not made that prediction, none of what happened would have happened, so the loom, apparently, is the ultimate bad guy. ooookay. which also negates the "good guy" part of the story b/c the "good guy" was acting to do the loom's will... or serving this illogical, blood lusting piece of machinery. ooookay.

And then, all these ppl get killed right after someone justifies all their killing by saying one life to save a thousand. One life that also takes a hundred or so along is okay, tho?

The Matrix worked b/c it did create an alternate reality that was believable - there was a world that did not operate by the same rules as this world and so everything that happened was consistent with that other reality. It had a plot. It wasn't just special effects and fights (but I liked the first half of the Matrix MUCH MORE than anything that came after it b/c the first half at least had some mystery to it, some reason for you to engage your mind and not just your lizard violence-lusting brain.

The plot to wanted goes something like this: guy is part of a shoot out. guy gets beaten to a pulp. guy goes out and kills others. guy goes out and kill still more others. oh yeah, and add the EVERY PRESENT NAUSEATING OVERDONE father/son conflict.

I saw a preview for a movie version of Jose Saramago's Blindness. I should have stayed home until that movie hit the theaters.

I used to go to movies a lot. I think this was the second movie I've bothered to see in the theater in a year. It's too expensive to go to a movie and then be pissed off that you're watching this bit of the ultra-violence porn. So fucking what if you get to see these special effects? why bother putting it into a two hour movie format when the movie only exists to allow the effects to be on screen. You could have an outtakes reel and charge admission and it would be the same thing.

/rant