filmland / By Charlie Myers

Real Talent Wanted

Plus: Pixar’s Wall-E finds poetry in trash

(July 3, 2008) Previews

Opening Wednesday, July 2, is the latest big summer film Hancock, starring the normally reliable box office star Will Smith, who plays a superhero of sorts. Hancock may be the genuine goods, but an alcohol and attitude problem means he is soundly disliked by the public he seeks to help. By chance he saves the life of public relations executive Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), and in return the PR guy offers the superhero an image enhancement campaign. True to form, though, Hancock becomes more interested in Ray’s wife Mary (Charlize Theron) than rehabilitation. Well who wouldn’t? I guess this is the dark side of Superman, and hopefully a more interesting character. Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) directs. Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and language. 92 m. At the Broadway, Mill Creek, Fortuna and Minor.

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Also opening Wednesday is Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, featuring the ever-adorable Abigail Breslin as the 9-year-old American Girl Kit who grows up in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the Great Depression. This tweener film will presumably appeal to those who snapped up the magazines and other merchandise associated with the toy retailer American Girl, and to reviewers who have little else to see. Kit’s out-of-work father is played by Chris O’Donnell, her mother by Julia Ormond (this must be the adult hook), while Stanley Tucci puts in an appearance as a magician and Joan Cusack as a librarian. The fine Canadian director Patricia Rozema, who is normally helming more adult fare such as When Night Is Falling, puts the whole thing together. Extensive Internet research indicates that the Kit doll kit currently retails for $105.00. Strange depression. Rated G. 101 m. At the Broadway and Mill Creek.

Reviews

WANTED: Angelina Jolie just seems to bring out the best in bad boys and girls. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that deep down she’s a major guilty pleasure for all of those nice people out there; you know, the ones that talk incessantly about family values.

Well, the latter group can relax, because Wanted is all about family values. How else to interpret a story where a meek wuss named Wesley Gibson (a very wuss appearing James McAvoy), a bored and totally unassertive account executive, transforms himself into a fearsome assassin in order to avenge the death of his father at the hands of other, presumably rogue, assassins? I mean, how much more family friendly can you get?

So, there are glimpses of some interesting tattoos on Jolie’s naked backside and a lot of exploding heads and other body parts. If you want true family values, you sometimes have to compromise a little, sort of like voting for McCain even if you don’t totally trust him.

Based on a comic book series by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, Wanted tells the story of how harassed at work and cuckolded at home Wesley joins the Fraternity, with a little help from the hot and dangerous Fox (Jolie), gets the shit beat out him, but persists until he too can bend bullets around objects in order to shoot the target behind, a talent apparently inherited from his assassin father.

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