From Iron Man to The Incredible Hulk to Hellboy II to The Dark Knight, comic-book movies are all the rage this summer, so it’s a little odd that Universal isn’t pushing the comic connection with their new action flick Wanted, which blasts its way into theaters today.
Of course, that marketing decision may have something to do with the fact that the movie version of Wanted bears only a passing resemblance to the Mark Millar-penned six-issue series that was published between 2003 and 2004. In the comic (which, full disclosure, I haven’t had the pleasure of reading) a group of super-villains has taken over the world and wiped all of Earth’s heroes out of existence. Meanwhile, ordinary folks go about their ordinary lives, including one Wesley Gibson, an employee at the kind of dreary office ridiculed in movies like Fight Club, The Matrix and Office Space. But, like Neo before him, Wesley soon discovers he’s got a higher calling. See, his long-lost father was a criminal mastermind known as The Killer, an unsurpassed marksman who was unexpectedly assassinated by an enemy of The Fraternity, the cabal of super-villains that runs things. His wimpy son is recruited to take his place in the organization by super-hot female operative Fox, but once the thrill of being a super-bad gun expert wears off, Wesley starts to wonder whether he’s really cut out of Fraternity life.

Okay, now contrast that plot with the movie’s storyline, which sets up The Fraternity as a secret society of assassins that was established centuries ago by a guild of weavers. That’s right, weavers—you know, the guys that make clothes. Anyhow, these ancient weavers discovered that their loom spoke to them in a kind of binary code, providing the names of targets that “fate” decreed had to die. Over the course of their existence, Fraternity operatives have developed a host of special talents, most notably the ability to “curve” the bullets they fire out of their guns. Once again, the assassination of one of the organization’s top agents kicks the story into gear, leading Fox (Angelina Jolie, in a role she was born to play) to approach the dead killer’s son Wes (James McAvoy of Atonement fame) and convince him to join the Fraternity. After a brief period of indecision, the depressed worker bee happily leaves his life of 9 to 5 drudgery behind and enters the Fraternity’s headquarters in a giant factory on the outskirts of some unidentified town that strongly resembles Chicago. There he meets the leader of the group, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), as well as other operatives who sport names like Gunsmith (played by Common), The Butcher (Dato Bakhtadze) and The Repairman (Marc Warren). Under the tutelage of Fox, the newest recruit enters into an intense training period that involves beatings, shooting lessons, beatings, subway rooftop chases and more beatings. Once he’s finally mastered the art of kicking ass, Wes starts wracking up the body count before coming face to face with the man that killed his father. But wait! Could it be that this guy isn’t his father’s killer but…his actual father? Paging Luke Skywalker!!

As you can tell, the plot of Wanted is derivative nonsense, borrowing elements from a long list of other movies (Star Wars, The Matrix and The Godfather just to name a few) and working them into a screenplay that must have read like gibberish on the page. Fortunately for everyone involved, the task of bringing this script to the screen was handed to Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, whose previous credits include the visually dazzling (if borderline incoherent) fantasy/horror hybrids Nightwatch and Daywatch. Never one to hold the camera still when he could send it hurtling after bullets and falling train cars, Bekmambetov brings a kinetic energy to the picture that helps you forget—or at least ignore—its severely underdeveloped story. Of course, there will be a sizeable number of moviegoers who find the film’s hyperactive visual style completely unwatchable. Here’s a good litmus test: if you got queasy watching The Bourne Ultimatum‘s jittery camerawork, you may experience similar headaches and nausea during Wanted. Bekmambetov’s trick is to regularly speed up and slow down the action, all the while letting things like bullets, computer keyboard keys and teeth fly directly towards the camera lens. (One can only imagine how this movie would have looked in 3D.) Naturally, these kind of visual pyrotechnics can wear out their welcome after awhile, particularly if there isn’t a great story to hang them on. Eventually, even I grew weary of the film’s relentless hyperactivity and found myself wishing that I could pat Timur on the shoulder and tell him to just chill out already. With all the craziness going on around them, the actors don’t get much of a chance to, you know, act, but McAvoy and Jolie are able to score a few memorable moments. (I have to admit that the normally svelte Angie looked scarily thin here—an assassin’s arms shouldn’t resemble chopsticks!) As far as this summer’s comic-book movies go, Wanted isn’t a crowd-pleaser on the level of Iron Man and probably won’t come close to the grandeur of The Dark Knight or Hellboy II, but at least it’s not as boring as The Incredible Hulk.

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I don’t know how they run things over at Pixar, but part of me thinks that this group of animation geniuses decides what film they’re going to make next by coming up with a list of seemingly impossible ideas and then assigning them to whatever foolhardy filmmaker volunteers. How else do you explain a company producing movies about talking cars, a rat that cooks or, in the case of its new feature-length cartoon Wall*E, the last functional robot on a deserted Earth some 700 years in the future? But that isn’t the only thing that makes Wall*E one of Pixar’s riskiest productions to date. Director Andrew Stanton has upped the ante by keeping the film’s extensive cast of robot characters monosyllabic, which means that much of the film is free of conventional dialogue. Instead these machines communicate to each other (and us) through digital squawks and programmed gestures. What’s marvelous about the movie—and one of the many things that makes it unlike any other film, animated or otherwise, in recent memory—is that we understand everything they’re saying and feeling without all the excess verbiage that pervades so many contemporary big-budget studio productions. Although Wall*E isn’t exactly a silent film–after all, these robots do regularly “talk” to each other throughout–in its best moments it displays the same mastery of visual storytelling that distinguished silent screen legends like Murnau, Tati and Chaplin.

It’s worth noting that if you’ve seen any of the trailers for Wall*E, you only know one aspect of the movie’s plot. Opening in an abandoned metropolis, the first half-hour is given over to establishing the titular robot’s daily routine: a little trash compacting, followed by a hunt for cool knick-knacks (Rubik’s Cubes, sporks and the like) before winding down every night with a viewing of the 1969 Barbara Streisand musical Hello, Dolly! Wall*E’s solitary existence is shattered by the arrival of a spaceship, which drops off a sleek high-tech ‘bot named EVE to scour the ravaged planet for any sign of green life. Partly out of loneliness and partly because EVE is just freakin’ awesome, Wall*E instantly falls in love with his unexpected visitor, feelings which she eventually comes to reciprocate. (I hate to assign genders to these sexless robots, but the movie does encourage us to view EVE as a girl and Wall*E as a boy—besides it’ll be easier for all of you to follow the plot synopsis that way.) Wall*E unexpectedly aids his would-be girlfriend in her mission when he shows her a small plant that he had previously tucked away in his extensive junk collection. Her target located, EVE promptly goes into stasis mode until her spaceship returns to pick her up. Unwilling to let her go, Wall*E hitches a ride and jets into deep space, eventually rendezvousing with a luxury space vessel, which carries the last living group of humans in the entire universe.

It’s at this point that Wall*E really blasts off and becomes an out-of-this-world moviegoing experience. As our little hero follows his true love around the enormous ship, he comes into contact with a whole society of robots, from frustrated little mops to a HAL-like autopilot. One of the movie’s subtle jokes is that these machines actually have more personality than their flesh and blood “masters” who, over the centuries, have devolved into fat blobs that spend all of their time in hover-chairs hooked up to a non-stop stream of televised commercials for “cupcakes in a cup” and other products brought to them by the good folks at the Buy n Large Corporation. The only human who seems to possess a modicum of brain power is the ship’s captain (voiced by Jeff Garlin), who slowly wakes up from his media-induced slumber to help steer the ship back home to Earth. Stanton wisely keeps the humans in supporting roles and, quite frankly, I would have been just as happy if they barely appeared at all. Unlike the dialogue-free sections, the scenes with humans have a tendency to overstate the movie’s themes, pushing it uncomfortably close to the realm of preachiness. At the same time, I admire Stanton for inventing a vision of the future that doesn’t sugercoat where our current appetite for conspicuous consumption might one day lead us.

While the film’s social message comes through loud and clear, it never detracts from the heart of the picture—the unlikely romance between Wall*E and EVE. Having sat through my fair share of love stories so far this year, I’m pleased to say that this relationship is by far the most realistic and moving one I’ve seen yet. Bonus kudos to the filmmakers for creating such a vibrant, memorable “female” character—Wall*E’s name may be in the title, but EVE is the movie’s real star. She’s strong, smart and endlessly capable—it’s no wonder that Wall*E falls immediately under her spell. When you see these lovebirds dancing in the vacuum of space, your heart twirls and soars right along with them.