WANTED

Nominated for Best Sound and Best Sound Editing

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov

Starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, and Angelina Jolie





The FACTS:
So James McAvoy has a lame life and one day Angelina Jolie tells him his dad was the world's greatest assassin and he must carry on that mantle or something. Shootouts occur, awesome car chase, and they go see Morgan Freeman. He runs the assassins and proves to McAvoy that he can do all kind of cool stuff like shoot the wings off some flies (apparently by greatly accelerating his heartbeat and flooding his system with adrenalin!) and he must avenge his dad's death by killing this rogue assassin. McAvoy starts training Karate Kid style, with great personal suffering, and great montages. There's a twist, and a whole lotta killing.

The GOOD:

There's something that separates the really good action flicks from the average ones. It's called the "whoa factor," for lack of a better term. It's when you're watching an action sequence and something happens that you've never seen before, never even imagined before. Wanted has this year's whoa factor. And not just the "actually kind of lame and never quite explained" curving bullets thing. The car chase/shootout is the action sequence of the year. There's also a glimpse of Angelina Jolie's hot ass (BREAK OUT THE PAUSE AND ZOOM BUTTONS!).

The BAD:

A plot full of cliches starting with the "you have a destiny to fulfill" line to the LONG training montages which make McAvoy THE BEST assassin ever seemingly, to an "Obie-Wan never told you about your father" twist. Did I just give too much away? Who cares, just watch the car chase!

The UGLY:

You actually want me to believe a huge tapestry/loom thing tells the assassins who to kill? There's suspending disbelief, and then there's this....ugh.

Wanted is everything a good shoot'em up action should be, and it has enough "whoa" moments cool enough to overcome the "huh?" plot and the "saw it coming 15 minutes in" twist.



MOVIE CHEETAH'S GRADE: B


As for the Oscar noms, Wanted is not a good enough film overall to win Best Sound, something that requires good sound effects, a good score, and a good mix. It has a much better chance to win Sound Editing, with all the cool gunfire and exploding heads sounds, but it really has no chance against Iron Man.

A three man team was responsible for the dense sound mix. Chris Jenkins has two Oscars for mixing the sound on Out of Africa (1985) and The Last of the Mohicans (1992), also nominated for Dick Tracy (1990). Frank A. Montano has four nominations, Under Siege (1992), The Fugitive (1993), Clear and Present Danger (1994), and Batman Forever (1995), but no wins yet. On a side note, Jenkins and Montano also worked on Frost/Nixon. This is the first nomination for Petr Forejt.

The Sound Editing was done by Wylie Stateman, who was thrice nominated. For Sound on Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Sound Editing on Cliffhanger (1993) and Memoirs of a Geisha (2005).