Bad Boys of 'Last Vegas'

Sometimes old men just want to act like young men. That's the message of Last Vegas, which brings some talented veteran actors into the territory settled by the likes of a young Nicolas Cage, Bradley Cooper and Ashton Kutcher. In the film, four childhood friends meet up in Las Vegas for a bachelor party and a wedding, each going through their own personal crisis. Billy (Michael Douglas) is marrying a woman half his age, but is conflicted over whether he really loves her. Sam (Kevin Kline) is recovering from yet another joint replacement surgery and is unsatisfied with the way his life has become. Art (Morgan Freeman) recently recovered from a stroke but feels coddled at the hands of his worrying son. Paddy (Robert De Niro) still mourns the loss of his wife a year before, and has some unresolved issues with Billy. As they arrive in the city of sin, each is rearing to let loose and have a good time, but they're not prepared for what is thrown their way in Las Vegas, and what it will mean for their friendship as a whole.

The boys are back in town

Naturally, the best part of Last Vegas are the interactions between the main actors themselves. Each performer has their own distinct strength to bring to the table, from Douglas' easygoing charm to Kline's peppy spryness to De Niro's tough guy attitude to Freeman's mellow voice and quick wit. From then opening scene (which features the characters as children), we understand the balance of their friendship, and it helps when the actors are diverse enough to be distinctive but alike enough for the audience to understand why they would be friends (you know, just like real life). That said, I do wish the pairings had been more diverse; De Niro and Douglas are almost always paired with one another, while Kline and Freeman play more of a comedic duo when they're by themselves. De Niro, meanwhile, never pairs with Freeman or Kline with Douglas, meaning their interactions are sadly limited. Still, the script does a good job of giving each lead their own arc, and of integrating Mary Steenburgen into the all-male cast, even if it is just as the love interest torn between two men.

Well, she's got a captive audience.

As director Jon Turteltaub has done in the past, he proves he can create a film that appeals to broad segments of the population. While perhaps not as kid-friendly as The Sorcerer's Apprentice or the National Treasure franchise (mainly because of Las Vegas' well-deserved reputation in general), Last Vegas can easily be enjoyed by any adult watching. In effect, it is the complete opposite of the gonzo, up-the-ante humor method that The Hangover and its sequels employed. The laughs here are certainly innocuous enough, relying mainly on the interplay between the main characters and generic jokes about old age, though the quality of the actors does raise the quality somewhat. There are some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments but to be honest, most of the film will only get silent chuckles, though the point should be raised that never does the humor fall flat.

...and special celebrity referee Morgan Freeman!

If there's one place Last Vegas fails, it's the dramatic story between Billy and Paddy. Without giving away too much, their off-screen feud is one of the oldest cliches in Hollywood storytelling, not to mention one that they reenact in the present day (past and future reflecting one another is another Hollywood cliche). Despite both Douglas and De Niro performing well enough to carry the tale, they can't get away from the fact that their story is nothing new, even with the unique (though not as much as it used to be) setting and strong acting performances to back it up. It also doesn't help that Kline and Freeman's characters have nothing to add to that mix; as I mentioned before, they're mainly for comedic relief, adding no dramatic tension to the overall plot.

To another year of relevance!

Despite the film's many flaws (Turteltaub will never be confused as a "great" Hollywood director), Last Vegas is still very much a fun time at the movies. It's relatively safe, taking no risks whatsoever with its plot and character development, but the humor stands out, as does the fact that we never get to see veteran performers have so much fun on the big screen. Usually, this kind of movie is a young man's game, and these four actors put Hollywood on notice that old men can -and want to - have fun, too. Now they just need a better vehicle to do it with, as Last Vegas is a decent, but not quite worthy effort to get these four men out of supporting roles and back into the limelight where somebody seems to think they still belong.

Open Letters Mothly: Now You See Me

All-star casts can be hit or miss. For every The Departed, The Expendables or Oceans 11, there is Mars Attacks or this year's absolutely horrid "comedy" Movie 43. To balance so many A-list personalities at once is a magic act in and of itself, and that is the perfect segue into Now You See Me, which has two former Oscar winners and three former nominees among its actors. It's magic act is nothing short of impossible, and that's what makes it so intriguing a premise for the big screen.

One year after four street magicians were plucked off the street by a mysterious benefactor, "The Four Horsemen" are headlining Las Vegas when they pull off the impossible: transporting a man across space and time to help them rob a bank in Paris. When the FBI gets involved and can find no way to see how they pulled it off other than "magic", the Horsemen are free to go. Now it's a race against time as the law tries to figure out how these seemingly harmless magicians are creating the impossible, and its a race against the clock to stop them from completing their final performance.

Now You See Me is directed by Louis Leterrier and stars Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Melanie Laurent, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman.

Click here for the full review at Open Letters Monthly.

The Gates of Oblivion

You know it's still early in 2013 when I'm having a hard time even recommending that you see one of the more action-oriented science fiction stories outside the Summer movie season. After being floored by the big screen visual wonders of director Joseph Kosinski's feature debut Tron: Legacy, getting to see his followup in the form of a post-apocalyptic tale like Oblivion ought to have been a guaranteed treat. After all, this wasn't just a random story, but one Kosinski had been attempting to make for years in homage to sci-fi movies from the seventies (even co-writing the screenplay with The Departed's William Monahan, Toy Story 3's Michael Arndt and Karl Gajdusek). Combining his love of the genre with his innate mastery of all things visual, the oddly-named Oblivion should have been the kind of mysterious, fun thrill ride that forced you to see it on the big screen. So why am I having such a hard time recommending it?

Yankee fandom will never die, it seems.

It's certainly not the concept that falters. Sixty years after aliens known as Scavs destroyed our Moon and most of the planet, the surviving remnants of humanity are now off-world, transported to the orbital space station known as the "Tet" in preparation of being transported to a new colony on Titan. Left on the planet are technician Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and his communications officer Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), tasked with maintaining the security drones that protect operations that mine Earth's natural resources for use on our new home. While Victoria can't wait to leave, Jack is the curious type, always searching for new discoveries and dreading the coming time when he will have to leave what he considers his home. But a crashed shuttle pod with a human survivor raises all kinds of questions about their mission, especially when that survivor (Olga Kurylenko) seems to have some mysterious connection to Jack's missing past.

The Scientologists are invading!

The acting and special effects are both as strong as the concept they are wrapped around. Cruise of course no longer needs to stretch his abilities for his movies to be successful (so far), but here he actually displays more than his trademark charm, parsing a bit of genuine emotion for good measure as well. Of course, he's well within his action wheelhouse, and it's difficult to imagine the now-51 year-old slowing down anytime soon, and certainly not if he can keep putting forth good performances like the one he showcases here. His female leads struggle a little, not via lack of talent but more through lack of romantic chemistry with Cruise. Even if you can get past their age differences (both Kurylenko and Riseborough are almost twenty years Cruise's younger), their inability to connect on-screen with their lead actor only hampers their performances and the story. They still put together good efforts, albeit flawed ones. The cast is rounded out by solid and expected showings from Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo and Nikolaj Coster-Waldeau (who is having a very good 2013, himself), populating the mostly-lifeless Earth with enough personality to keep the audience invested.

And wait... it that Zoe Bell?

As for the effects and action, they're everything we've come to expect from Kosinski, whose Tron sequel was visually amazing despite the story's irregularities. Earth is a cratered wasteland, but the director adds depth to the surroundings via famous destroyed landmarks, gorgeous vistas and little slices of natural heaven. Unlike many end-of-the-world movies, he doesn't just coat everything in grey in post-production to add mood. You get the feeling that he's got an emotional attachment to his imagery, and that he really puts his whole heart into what you watching. It's also the biggest and best argument for seeing Oblivion on the big screen, if not necessarily in 3D or IMAX; these exquisite visuals simply may not translate when introduced to your too-small television screen, or underpowered DVD players (sorry, but at this point it's officially past time you upgraded to Blu-ray).

That's a lot of resource-harvesting action.

And you'll need those visuals to get past Oblivion's biggest flaw; the story is just not there. It's not that it's a bad tale, or even all that poorly-told. You'll genuinely be engaged by plot twists, progressive storytelling and a competent if overly-direct vision; Kosinski doesn't quite trust his audience yet, and so he plugs everything important into the center of the shot so that you can by no means miss so obvious or clever a moment. A bit of subtlety couldn't have hurt, but patience is often the game of veteran directors (and even they don't always get it right), and so his youthful inexperience isn't the detraction it perhaps could have been. Instead, Oblivion's biggest issue is that it brings absolutely nothing to the table. It might have started off as homage, but unlike JJ Abrams' Super 8 - which successfully paid respect to early Steven Spielberg without outright copying him - Kosinski cannot help but crib from his superiors, borrowing plot, themes and sequences from classics such as Wall-E, Moon, District 9, the Matrix Trilogy, 2001 and Independence Day, and that's just scraping the surface.

Soooo, you couldn't see this coming?

You won't find a better example of Hollywood hubris than that of a seemingly original tale that brings absolutely nothing new of note to show. How many sequels a year are we getting from the movie industry? How many remakes? At least we know what we're getting into when we buy a ticket to those. Oblivion is gorgeously designed, well-acted, and certainly cannot be called a waste of time should you decide to venture out and see it right now, not even by me. But there's just no REASON for it, sitting through over two hours of material you could cobble together from a home movie collection. It's a fine time suck if you really have nothing better to watch, but with Iron Man 3 just over the horizon and the true pantheon of summer action movies not far behind, soon you'll be able to do much better than this second-rate sci-fi flick, which won't likely be remembered come the year's end.

Red and White House

Early 2013 hasn't shown much love for action movies. There are a couple of reasons for that. First up is the fact that audiences are sick of retro action stars who haven't accepted that they don't have the same level of cachet anymore. We've seen Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham and Arnold Schwarzenegger struggling against middling turnouts in what used to be their collective wheelhouse, all the good will from the violently fun Expendables series having apparently dried up. What action we have actually deigned to watch this year was largely franchise fare, with GI Joe getting fans to the cinema and not a whole lot else. But for some reason, people came out to see Olympus Has Fallen, directed by Antoine Fuqua and featuring Hollywood's most charismatic voice (Morgan Freeman), its sharpest chin (Aaron Eckhart), and its most dashing rogue (Gerard Butler). For the record, those are three major (and sometimes underappreciated) talents in one major motion picture.

Yippi-ki Yay.

Surprisingly, what's most interesting about Olympus Has Fallen's story is that it's not exactly original; in fact, Fuqua's film is the first of two "terrorists attack the White House" stories to be released this year, with Roland Emmerich's White House Down due out this summer. That's right, folks: just as 2012 featured dueling Snow White productions, Hollywood has declared war on Washington D.C. in 2013. On a typical day at the White House, President Benjamin Asher (Eckhart) is in a meeting with the Prime Minister of South Korea to discuss the rising tensions with the nation's aggressive neighbor to the north. What follows is most unexpected, as a sudden and violent terrorist attack captures Asher and several members of his staff, securing them in a bunker beneath 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and wiping out the shocked and vulnerable Secret Service in the process. While the Speaker of the House and acting President Allan Trumbull (Freeman) attempts to diplomatically handle the situation, he's got an asset on the ground: disgraced former Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Butler), a former special ops soldier who came to the aid of his fellow agents during the attack. With time running out and a dastardly terrorist plot taking shape, Banning might be all there is between us and nuclear holocaust.

Shoot first and ask questions later.

For Butler, it's a return to ass-kicking after a few years of playing dice with his acting career. While I won't disparage his talents - the man has the ability to play drama or comedy, action or romance at the drop of a hat - rarely do audiences seem to care about his movies unless he's killing others with impunity. People seem to enjoy seeing him as an honorable man who blows shit up (thanks to my friend Anne for that coinage) and that's certainly how Olympus Has Fallen succeeds, putting Butler and his fellow actors forward and letting them carry the story. Say what you will about the movie as a whole (and I will), but the film does a good job utilizing its cast, from the trio of stars to strong supporting turns by the likes of Angela Bassett, Rick Yune, Melissa Leo and Dylan McDermott, among a slew of others.

Rocking the bow tie.

Unfortunately that's about where the only bright spot of this movie lies. While the production values are decent, and the action scenes competent enough to keep your attention, what can't be ignored is just how STUPID the script and the plot are. While you certainly shouldn't expect that the amount of political savvy here would rival the stories of, say, The West Wing, but the inanity of the story is downright silly. Fighter jets lose to a hulking super carrier because they line up perfectly with the plane's mounted machine guns. The bad guy's plans hinge on the US President making the ABSOLUTE wrong decision, and when he does his secret servicemen barely put up a fight about the ignorance of procedure. And speaking of the men tasked with protecting the leader of the free world: when the enemy is advancing under the cover of smoke and firing machineguns and RPGs, standing out in the open to get gunned down is decidedly not decent military training. It's illogical, cringe-worthy idiocy like this that ruins the flow of Olympus, and a little more time penning a reasonable script wouldn't have prevented our hero from kicking ass. Instead we're issued a needlessly hyper-violent movie where everybody is so stupid that the director assumes his audience is as well, and that they'll enjoy two hours of mindless gunfights and blatant pro-US pandering.

Glad I'm not on the janitorial crew...

Normally I'd say something along the lines of turning off your brain for a good time, but while Olympus Has Fallen manages to be among the better action movies released this year, it's still pretty damned mediocre. Being a step up from the worst of Stallone, Statham and Willis is nothing to be proud of, and Fuqua has taken some serious missteps in the time since his Training Day height. If you really, REALLY need to see an action movie before Iron Man 3 comes out next month, then maybe you can stomach the bloody, masochistic silliness that is this newest blend of repetitive explosions and monosyllabic dialogue. But if you can wait for this on DVD - or even skip it entirely - then I recommend you do so. Strong cast aside, there's just not enough reason to pay full price for a ticket, especially when you can wait just a few weeks for loads of better options.

Got Some Red on Me

So last week I took the opportunity to catch Red in the theater. Loosely based on the three-issue comic series by DC comics, the action/comedy proved to have an entertaining trailer, and with such a cast as Willis, Freeman, Mirren and Malkovich it seemed to be one of the "can't-miss" films of the year. But would seeing Red make you see red?

The story apparently has little to do with that of the original comic series (which is fine, since I never read it) but centers around a group of retired former wetworks operatives codenamed RED (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) who are temporarily brought out of their relatively listless lives due to C.I.A. hit squads suddenly try to take out retired operative Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), and not in the date sense. In questing to find out why he's being targeted for death, Willis is joined by his former mentor Joe (Morgan Freeman), madman Marvin (John Malkovich), successfully retired S.A.S. agent Victoria (Helen Mirren), and Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a benefits worker who Frank has taken a liking to and is therefore also being targeted. The mission takes them to locales around the United States and proves that these folks can still perform like spring chickens when they need to.

Season's greetings!

The story here is a slightly unrealistic one involving conspiracy theories, government cover-ups, unlikely coincidences and unlikely romances. So it has to be held together by a band of characters and actors who can center the attention of the audience on themselves and make the story more palatable than it is. To that effort, it's commendable that this is in fact an amazing cast who work well together, from the big name stars to the lower tiered yet no less talented performers. Willis is usually not known for his pleasant demeanor on-screen. In fact, he does get his "yippie-ki-yay" game face on for much of the film. I don't know if it stems from working with older actors, however, but Willis somehow in Red gains something I've not seen from him in many of his performances: an almost boy-like wonder, especially when he's in scenes with his character's crush, Sarah. For once, he's not the top dog, at least not in all things, and it makes his character and his acting all the better. Malkovich is a hoot as a partially-psychotic former agent first seen hiding out in the Louisiana bayou. The part of Marvin was originally to be played by John C. Reilly, and while I've liked Reilly and can see him being successful in this type of role, he's simply outclassed by Malkovich in all aspects. Playing Marvin as defiant, schizophrenic, and, of course, paranoid of any number of possible conspiracies, Malkovich puts on one of his more memorable performances, certainly a step up from his last major role in the seriously underperforming Changeling. Of course, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you, and so his character turns out to at times be more insightful than he would be otherwise. I simply can't imagine anyone but Malkovich in that role. Mirren is fantastic, with looks that could kill (sorry, I couldn't resist) and the demeanor you would expect from a true secret agent. She really takes to the somewhat humorous role with the same professionalism as she has in her multiple-nominated roles in the films The Queen and The Last Station, not to mention dozens of other similarly-lauded roles over the course of her career. Both the irony of seeing such a serious actress wielding high-caliber machine guns and the perfection of seeing the same thing lend a lot of credence to her ability as an actress. Of the main four, only Morgan Freeman disappoints, as there's simply not enough for him to do with his role, with all the best bits belonging to Willis, Malkovich and Mirren.

Not sure what to make of this scene

I was prepared to dislike Parker in this. Obviously most people know the actress as Nancy Botwin on Showtime's Weeds, but it's easy to forget that she has a long career in film and television preceding this, as I did. Frankly, the only film I've seen her in was Red Dragon, and her role was so small that I had completely forgotten about her not long after the fact. However, she shines here as an initially reluctant sidekick to Frank who gradually gets more and more excited as the terror and thrill of sneaking around and blowing stuff up puts a heavy emphasis on how dull and boring her regular life is. Parker is funny both physically and in her verbal delivery, a dual trait not many can claim to master. Also good though underutilized is Karl Urban as a C.I.A. agent tasked with taking out Frank. Urban has long been under-appreciated by Hollywood, with last year's Star Trek being his biggest and best opportunity to showcase his talents, and damned if he didn't make the best Doc McCoy since Deforest Kelly. Hopefully his role in Red is simply a gateway to bigger things and not a return to more of the same because he's far too talented to keep perpetually on the shelf. Brian Cox makes a surprise appearance as a former Russian agent who Frank goes to for help. I didn't even recognize Cox at first, his transformation so complete that it took me nearly half the film before it struck me who was uttering his lines, and his ability to meld into his part - as well as his charismatic interaction with the other characters, especially Mirren - makes for a great performance. Ernest Borgnine is simply wonderful as a records-keeper at the Agency, and Richard Dreyfus does a good if hammy job in a small but important role as a weapons' dealer and smuggler who is somehow involved with the conspiracy. These supporting performances, in conjunction with the larger star-held roles, mean that there are no weak moments with less-interesting characters pitted throughout the film, and the enjoyment level never dips because of that.

"He's dead, Jim. I killed him."

But great characters can't entirely keep together a plot secured by duct tape and staples. While interesting, the story is barely able to keep momentum throughout the film, and truly falters in the final act, when humor alone seems to be sustaining the plot threads, not suspense or drama, or even suspension of disbelief. We're never under the assumption that Frank and his team won't achieve their objective (though they never really GET an objective until near the end of the film) and that, unfortunately, makes the final payoff much less than it could have been. Also, the humor involving young upstarts calling members of the team "old man" or "grandpa" get old after a few turns, though the heroes' humorous (and often quite violent) responses make up for a lackluster effort by the screenwriters to get a cheap laugh at an older character's expense. It's a shame, but when your director's previous work was the same one who made The Time Traveler's Wife (Robert Schwentke), you have to expect that things won't be as good as you want them to be.

So THAT'S what John Malkovich looks like!

For it's sake, I wish Red had been released earlier this year. If it had, I would have grouped it with several action or comedic films I'd seen this year that rated favorably on my 2010 Top 10 List such as Alice in Wonderland, The Losers, and Date Night, all of which at one point dotted the list. However, all those titles were eventually knocked off the list by better films, and so Red, though it compares favorably with all those films, is denied a it's chance in the sun. It has great characters, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Malkovich get a Golden Globe nom for his performance (though I'd never expect him to win it), but the plot is simply too jumpy and the story poorly told and filled with extremely silly bits. Is it funny? Yes. Did I enjoy it? Indeed. Can I recommend it to people who want a cheap and silly film to see? Sure. Is it one of the best films of the year? A "can't miss"?

Sorry, machine-gun Mirren, no.

Wanted: Great Entertainment

The August issue of Details Magazine contains the following quote: "James McAvoy made out with Angelina Jolie, and you didn't." Frankly, I don't need Details to tell me that my fantasies haven't played out quite as expected, but the first trailer I saw of Wanted made me lean back and go "Whoa."

It was lust at first sight; all that violence; all that action; all that Angelina. Even the aforementioned McAvoy seemed to fit the part, and when you add a deep-voiced superstar like Morgan Freeman to the mix, you have a truly intriguing story, cast, and overall movie you just HAVE to watch.

Imagine to my surprise, then, that Wanted, directed by Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch), was actually based on a miniseries written by Ultimates scribe Mark Millar and drawn by Alex Ross wannabe J.G. Jones (Final Crisis). Even more astounded now, I decided I had to see both, starting with the sure-to-be-fantastic movie.

One thing to remember with Wanted: The Movie is very much based in reality. Even the opening sequence, where we see man leap through a plate glass window out of a high-up office tower over to ANOTHER tower a few hundred yards away to eliminate his would-be assassins, you hardly feel like you've left the modern-day world. This is also true when you see people shoot bullets out of the air, curve bullets or do other fits of daring-do... normal people wouldn't be able to do these things, but our heroes can.

And that brings us to McAvoy, playing the role of Wesley Gibson. Wesley is like you or me. He hates his job. He hates that his best friend is fucking his girlfriend when his back is turned. He hates his father for abandoning him at eighteen weeks old. He hates his ergonomic keyboard. He takes medication for severe panic attacks. Okay, maybe not QUITE like you or me. Wesley is used to being pushed around. He's never been the assertive type, used to being stepped on and never sure how to stop it. Along comes Fox (Jolie) who tells him his father was killed in our opening scene not too long ago, and after a bit of wild driving, she brings him to the Fraternity, led by the great Freeman as Sloan, who would train Wesley to be good enough to kill the rebel assassin who killed his dad.

First of all, the action sequences are fantastic. The only real hiccup is the driving scene with Jolie and McAvoy being chased by the bad guy (King Kong's Thomas Kretschmann) in which the camera gets a little too close and obscures some of the action. Besides that, though, the movie's action scenes are flawless, constantly letting blood and bending the fabric of reality to make everything both believable and unbelievable at the same time. I always knew Jolie could act, and McAvoy is fantastic as both the sniveling worm he starts as and the hardened killer he becomes. Other strong performances include Kretschmann and Common, who plays one of Wesley's trainers. Sadly, it seems that Morgan Freeman mails in his performance, though it didn't hurt the movie any with him at only half-strength. There are also some scenes that are a little TOO out there (animal rights activists will have trouble with a couple of scenes, though a slight reminder that this is just a movie should alleviate those concerns) and ridiculous, but nothing that detracts from the final product.

In all, Wanted is a fantastic movie. It's got acting, action, mythology and just plain bad-assness, all the while rooting itself in the real world in a completely believable fashion. I highly recommend it to any who haven't watched it yet. And if you have, make definite plans to pick it up on DVD, which it probably will by this Christmas.

I wish there were an easier way to compare the movie and the graphic novel well. I definitely liked the book, but I LOVED the movie so much more. However, it's hardly an even playing field, as the two mediums are so different that their disparate traits outnumber their similarities by a wide margin.

First of all, the majority of the story takes place in New York City (in the movie, it was Chicago). It starts off the same though, with anger and violence ripping through the first few scenes before we even get to Wesley. It's obvious from the start that there are some issues that take place in the book that don't place in the movie (racism, gender degradation, homosexuality, even excess violence).

But probably the most pointed difference between the book and the movie is that in the book, the Brotherhood are in reality a league of super villains. (Note: That wasn't a spoiler, if you read the FIRST ISSUE you'll see I'm right; they lay it out up front) Years ago, they organized, teamed up on the population of super heroes, and killed all of them. Then they wiped the memories of these heroes from the minds of the populace and now they run the world like a black-curtained Illuminati. As a member of the Fraternity, you can destroy, kill, rape, and rob with impunity, never being blamed for your actions. And Wesley's in since his dad was The Killer, a super assassin who never missed. Obviously, this changes the whole scheme of the universe, but I still liked the movie's ability to ground in reality, while the books seems far-fetched and full of holes.

Jones definitely loves his celebrity faces, as the main characters in the story look like Eminem, Halle Berry and Tommy Lee Jones. His art is actually very good, though some flashback sequences are drawn by Dick Giordano (The Phantom) and don't work as well. Jones is definitely the superior artist, and the vulgar and violent undertones are done well here.

Disappointing though is Millar's writing, which doesn't adopt the redemption story in the movie and instead the message the book seems to be trying to get across is "Fuck the world". On top of that, uninspired characters (Sucker, Fuck-Wit and Shit-Head are some such villains who don't amount to crap) and a general plot malaise don't quite live up to the clever dialogue and occasionally hilarious one-liners. If this had been more like the movie's story, instead of ANOTHER super-hero story, it might have been a little more original and stood out from the acres upon acres of indie super stores that exist out there today.

I picked up the Assassin's Edition of the Wanted novel, which includes some fantastic concept art, storyboards, covers, character dossiers and creator interviews. These are almost worth the price of admission alone, but I guess it depends on how much you like extras.

So there you have it! For once, the movie is BETTER than the book! Who'd a' thunk it? I hope you enjoyed this review, we're looking forward to the next Latest Issue!