There are no specific movie critics who I always agree with, but I do find that generally my feelings about films are similar to the averaged scores of movie critics compiled at Metacritic. Every once in a while, though, there comes a film where my views about it fall well outside the norm. Wanted, and its favorable metacritic score of 64, is just such a film.

Now, it is not that Wanted is awful; it is just that it is not good, and it is not really all that close to being good.

Wanted is the story of a regular, boring Joe of a guy with a shit job in a cubicle, a small, noisy apartment and a girlfriend who is cheating on him with his friend who through some combination of genetics and vaguely religious underpinnings gets brought into a secret society of assassins who blindly do the work of what they believe to be the righteous.

That is the crux of the story. A few attempts are made to fluff out this story, but they fall flat and feel like they were put together by someone who half-watched, presumably while doing a ton of speed, a number of recent hit films. There is a clear link to Fight Club and its statements on machismo and father/son relationships, but Wanted has none of the depth or scathing indictment of male dominance, not to mention the psychology and social commentary, ingrained in Fight Club. There is also some strange religious element to Wanted that many have compared to The DaVinci Code, which I understand, but at least in that film and book they take the time to really create and explore the backstory (whether you like or dislike the backstory is up to you). I think a better comparison might be Guy Ritchie’s Revolver, which has a bunch of Kaballah stuff in it, but is presented in such a way that none of it makes sense (and as some might suggest, it was not over my head, it was just ridiculously inane). Finally, in terms of the story arc and visual representation, the film that immediately jumps to mind is Shoot Em Up, an overtly cartoonish action flick starring Clive Owen. Oddly, that film was panned by critics and ignored by theater goers, while Wanted is receiving praise on both fronts.

The main reason for this has to be the dazzling special effects. They are, at times, quite ingenious. And there are a few action sequences that really work well, where you find yourself completely viscerally, if not mentally, absorbed. Still, I was not as enthralled by the special effects as some were, not so much because of the effects, but because of how silly they were in relation to the story.

One last element of Wanted that must be mentioned is the dialogue. Most of the time it is passable, but every once in a while it is so spectacularly bad that it will take your breath away and make you laugh uncontrollably at the same time (coughing is the inevitable conclusion to this combination). This awful dialogue does not just occur when the film is trying to create clever comic book catchphrases, but at random and unexpected moments and delivered by some great actors (Also, James McAvoy has been very good in some recent films, but he appears to be one of the very few UK or British colonies actors who cannot do an American accent. It was in and out, especially during scenes involving yelling, and even when it was in, it sounded plastic). I don’t want to share any of this dialogue, as I think you should have the joy of discovering it on your own, but be warned, you may have to leave the theater to get your coughing fit under control.

My score…45