Angelina Jolie

‘Wanted’ With Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy Concocts Curving Bullet in Gluttonously Entertaining Blockbuster

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:01:00 -0700

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – With curving, clinking and kissing bullets, “Wanted” indeed does Chicago proud. And Angelina Jolie sells it. And Morgan Freeman is ominous. And in his body of work, James McAvoy – the star of this orgasmic summer blockbuster – becomes a man.

Fox (Angelina Jolie) shoots from the driver’s side of her Dodge Viper in the action-thriller that tells the tale of one apathetic nobody’s transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice in “Wanted”.
Photo credit: Universal Pictures

Many Chicagoans have been keenly aware of the film’s local filming throughout downtown Chicago and Broadview, Ill.

Angelina Jolie as Fox in “Wanted”.
Photo credit: Jaap Buitendijk

After also focusing its filming lens throughout the Czech Republic and Hungary, Chicago’s prominence reigns surprisingly dominant and central to the film’s assassin-based plot of one “apathetic nobody’s transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice”.

James McAvoy is the man of the hour, and in a short 110 minutes, is handed a Hollywood renovation from an initially fear-laden, listless boy to a surgically precise killer who’d give Matt Damon’s character (Jason Bourne) in “The Bourne Ultimatum” a fight for his life.

“Wanted” features Chicago front and center not only in its aesthetics but also central to its high-adrenaline pacing and action sequences. The Universal Pictures film needed exactly this big-city, fast-action feel to haunt McAvoy with the necessary vibrations in his quest to decide who he really is.

While “Wanted” is chock full of innovation – especially in its fight sequences and “The Matrix”-inspired special effects on ludicrously entertaining Hollywood steroids – the film at times still falls victim to the traditional stereotypes of what you’d expect in an assassin action-thriller with an ever-increasing death count.

“Wanted,” which was pushed back to a June 27, 2008 release date from an initial March 28, 2008 plan, won’t accrue the high marks and huge numbers it deserves because of its story alone. This is an outright action fest of sensory enchantment, carnal killing and orgasmic delight.

James McAvoy as Wesley in the action-thriller that tells the tale of one apathetic nobody’s transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice in “Wanted”.
Photo credit: Jaap Buitendijk

While ultimately not blown away by the power of its story as a whole – yes, it can be said “Wanted” is just another assassin film with big names, fancy sequencing and the PR machine in full gear – James McAvoy’s character is an important one many people can relate to. As well, it actually conveys a valuable message.

On the flip side, the “Loom of Fate” is a god-awful plotline decision. A loom in a textile factory that spells out who you should kill and assassins blindly follow the decades-old machine to the bloody death of someone they’ve never met and know nothing about? Cut. Edit. Rewrite. Something else. Just not that.

But like McAvoy as Wesley Gibson, are you also in a dead-end, 9-to-5 desk job that you either just tolerate or actually despise because you have bills to pay even though your passion might be something else entirely that can’t pay your living?

A handcrafted bullet makes its way to an unfortunate target in the action-thriller that tells the tale of one apathetic nobody’s transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice in “Wanted”.
Photo credit: Universal Pictures

Not all of us have the bravado to utter the sure-to-get-fired “death mouth” to the boss. Certainly in the real world we don’t then transform into a crushing assassin and find our calling in offing people. But this is just a metaphor to inspire you to find and live your own calling.

While the plot’s somewhat tired – yeah, yeah: no one can trust anyone, everyone’s out to get someone and one man must learn to rise above them all – first-time U.S. film director Timur Bekmambetov sells the journey as one that’s genuinely inspirational.

The “Wanted” we’re seeing now, though, came from an entirely different origin: comic books.

Not only was the entire “supervillains take over the world” storyline dropped in this “Wanted” but originally in the comic book the story takes place in an alternate present day. Bekmambetov’s “Wanted” strays so significantly from its comic origins that you can hardly tell where it came from.

The premise was for these supervillains to “band together … and use their vast collective powers – including mad science, magic and mind control – to eliminate all the world’s superheroes and rewrite reality in their own dark image.”

Instead – and along with delivering a delicious and indisputably entertaining film – screenwriters Michael Brandt, Derek Haas and Chris Morgan manage to dig down deep and pose one of the more thought-provoking questions a blockbuster has taunted audiences with in some time:

“What have you done with your life lately?”

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More film reviews from critic Adam Fendelman.

It’s a critically important question. On one hand, intended “Wanted” moviegoers have already committed to purchasing their ticket because Hollywood allows us to peer into the darkest depths of our most primal instincts and unshackle the chastity belts of our most sensual fantasies.

But on the other – a side you wouldn’t foresee in a film with the mission to dish out a decidedly raucous ass kickin’ – McAvoy’s pursuit to buck the normalcy of his paper-pushing life and his verbally abusive cubicle boss in favor of something that makes him feel alive shouldn’t inspire us to unleash our literal killer within.

In the subtle subtext of this entertainment behemoth, we are urged to find our own path that transforms our life into one that’s worth living. We are to choose one where waking up and falling asleep every day isn’t all for nothing. Rather than just floating by, it’s time to wake up and be alive.

“Wanted,” which opened everywhere on June 27, 2008, stars James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp, Common and David O’Hara.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com

‘Beowulf’ in IMAX 3D Affords Break For Big Actors to Improve Even Themselves

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:14:59 -0700

CHICAGO – It’s all the rave today to exhume an epic from long, long ago and bring it back on the monster screen bigger, better and with more grandeur than ever fathomable before.

Angelina Jolie in “Beowulf”.
Image credit: Paramount Pictures
Today’s “Beowulf” represents that decade-long quest for “Stardust” scribe Neil Gaiman. While navigating the feat of serving this lordly tale justice, he also had to undo a deeply rooted childhood stigma of indifference in the eyes of director Robert Zemeckis.

While the story of “Beowulf” is the oldest epic poem in the English language, Zemeckis from his early days was unaroused by it.

“Frankly, nothing about the original poem appealed to me,” Zemeckis said about the original story. “I remember being assigned to read it in junior high school and not being able to understand it because it was in Old English.

He added: “It was one of those horrible assignments. I never really thought about it after that [and] never considered that it might make for an interesting story.”

Gaiman and co-writer Roger Avary (“Pulp Fiction”) had to fashion a 180-degree change of heart. They indeed captivated Zemeckis, who returned to his new art form from “The Polar Express” that opened the can of worms on a new age in filmmaking.

It’s not Pixar. It’s not just CGI. It’s “performance capture”.

With a steep price tag in excess of $150 million for “Beowulf,” the unproven concept is competing with itself in an attempt to slather the most palatable sauce you could coddle on the best filet mignon you could ever gorge.

From top to bottom, this image shows the progression
in “Beowulf” with performance capture technology.
Image credits: Paramount Pictures
Despite early talks of the titillating format potentially representing a replacement to using human actors in their actual skin, the nature of its immediate gratification is now being pitched as less about the technology and more about the actors crafting the new mold.

It’s like what online avatars are doing to offline creators: zapping the pimples, ballooning the boobs and bulking the muscles. It’s essentially making big-name actors better than even they can be.

Ray Winstone as Beowulf – who went into battle buck naked with the overpowering demon Grendel – wishes he could be that chiseled.

Angelina Jolie – who was nervous with her own libidinous revelations – could learn a thing or two about her digital self and certainly make Brad Pitt jealous. Jolie as a seductress to the nth degree is big selling point for this film.

Zemeckis said of his Jolie selection: “When she stepped on set and became that character, it was a powerful thing to watch. She was just magnetic. She hypnotized everyone. Nobody can do that kind of sultry character as well as Jolie.”

Ray Winstone as Beowulf in “Beowulf”.
Image credit: Paramount Pictures
“I loved it,” Jolie said about the format. “At first, I thought [it was] going to be so weird [with] these dots on our faces in these wetsuit-type costumes with no props or sets. What it really does is strip everything down to the essentials of performing.

“There is so much freedom to just be everything in the moment – and give it your all – because it’s being covered completely and you can overlap and you can play and you can improvise.

“There’s also an immediate friendship between the actors. When you’re both covered in dots, you become very close and you rely on each other.”

Jolie’s maternal instinct kicks in while playing Grendel’s mother. She said: “If someone hurts your son, you would go to the ends of the Earth to avenge him.”

Jolie, who describes her character as a “sexy lizard” who could assume a quasi-human form, had to personify the beguiling woman reptile without the benefit of costumes, prosthetics, props or makeup. She largely relied on Zemeckis’ direction.

As for the film’s rating, something is seriously amuck here.

Even if you extricated the entirety of Jolie’s full-frontal flesh time, the MPAA is offensively off its rocker in handing this film a “PG-13” rating instead of the “R” rating it absolutely should be.

The graphic violence and the adult jokes alone make it wholly inappropriate for kids around 13 years old.

Grendel in “Beowulf”.
Image credit: Paramount Pictures
Moving on, the real – albeit modified and perhaps even improved – Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Alison Lohman, Crispin Glover and Brendan Gleeson all offered up a performance capture version of themselves, too.

To get today’s most lavish filmmaking realized, digital sensors are affixed to their faces and bodies via a form-fitting Lycra suit. Their live performances are “captured” and input into Sony Pictures Imageworks mega computers.

Action happens in an invisible box called a “volume,” which is segmented into quadrants that can house up to 40 cameras. This is performance capture-speak for a soundstage and is thusly because multiple cameras can capture scenes in a three-dimensional space.

If you transport back to your early school days, we recall that the geometric formula for volume is “x,” “y” and “z”. These equate to width, height and length. In film, a volume is the area where the cameras are all aimed within which face and body data are captured.

Takes (or “beats”) from multiple sessions can be edited, blended, mixed and matched to amputate most of the cartoon-like visuals we’ve seen in the past. Instead, the imagery is tethered to the actual creative expression of the actors and the director.

Angelina Jolie in “Beowulf”.
Image credit: Paramount Pictures
The magic is in its detail. Performance capture loves to flaunt its aptitude with human hair, water, fire, skin, the bumps on skin and the creases enveloping muscle.

The mouth is still an area of contempt for careful critics, though, who’ve grumbled even in “Beowulf” about its sometimes wooden and unnatural ways.

If you remove your IMAX 3D lenses at any point during the entirely 3D picture, you can in fact discern flaws shielded by the technology. Also, the float factor still needs ironing out as humans don’t glide so gracefully.

Nitpicky criticisms aside, you’d be making a regrettable mistake waiting to view “Beowulf” on DVD at home or even on a standard movie screen. The film is the most IMAX-worthy picture released to date and seeing it any other way is like shutting one eye with 20/100 vision in the other.

By Adam Fendelman
Publisher
HollywoodChicago.com