Summary
Every once in a while, a funny thing can happen with streaming services likeNetflix. Seemingly out of nowhere, a film that most people haven’t thought about in years comes along and becomes a streaming hit. Well, it’s happened again.
You won’t be surprised to learn thatcomic book adaptationswere all the rage in the late 2000s. Films featuringBatmanand Spider-Man were lighting up the box office every few years, meaning almost every popular comic was either actively getting an adaptation or in the process of getting one. Big draws like Superman and the X-Men were getting huge movies. Projects once considered unfilmable, likeWatchmen, were getting the green light. Adult-oriented comics likeSin CityandV for Vendettawere getting big-budget flicks. If you think Marvel and DC are out of control now, you are forgetting how wild and crazy the 2000s were for comic book adaptations. The film based onThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemenstraight up caused Sean Connery to (mostly) retire from the acting game altogether. It was a weird time in Hollywood!
A lot of people are either discovering or rediscovering 2008’sWantedon Netflix at the moment.To be fair,Wantedwas only the tenth most streamed film in the United States onNetflixlast week, but every other film was either a Netflix Original Film (likeHappy Gilmore 2), featured Adam Sandler (like the originalHappy Gilmore), or was released in the last decade (likeDespicable Me 4).Wantedis none of those things and its random success is a testament to what Netflix and other streaming services like it offer: the ability for a random movie to be found by mountains of people who never would’ve watched it otherwise.
WantedIs Well Worth Any Action Fan’s Time, Even If The Oft-Rumored Sequel Never Happens
“Bullet Curving” Is Super Cool, You Guys
Extremely loosely based on the comic book miniseries of the same name by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones,Wantedkind of came out of nowhere in the summer of 2008 to prove thatR-rated action films could still make a ton of moneyif done right.On a relatively scant budget of $75 million,Wantedblew the doors off the international box office and raked in over $342 million.The film follows the somewhat pathetic Wesley Gibson, played by James McAvoy, as he discovers that he is the son of an assassin with a genetic ability to produce otherworldly amounts of adrenaline that basically give him superpowers. As such, Wesley joins Angelina Jolie’s Fox and Morgan Freeman’s Mr. Sloan as member of the assassin guild known as the Fraternity.Chaos and copious bloodshed unsurprisingly ensue.
Russian director Timur Bekmambetov introduced himself to American audiences with a bang that set him up to be the next hot director in Tinseltown (something he squandered with 2012’sAbraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and McAvoy hinted at his star potential years before he becamethe face of theX-Menfilmsin 2011’sX-Men: First Class.The supporting cast of Jolie, Freeman, Terence Stamp, Common, and Chris Pratt (among others) is top-notch and the whole “curved bullets” ability that members of the Fraternity can pull off—literally bending bullets around solid objects to hit their targets—is both wholly stupid and extremely awesome.
Basically, if you have Netflix, and you’ve never seenWanted, you should hop on the trend with everyone else.And if you have seenWanted, well, maybe it’s time to watch it again!
