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Eileene has been looking forward to Wanted for some time; she really enjoyed Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor), and wanted to see how director Timur Bekmambatov would perform with a large budget and a Hollywood studio. I attended out of a sense of spousal duty, because Eileene made the mistake of buying the comic book upon which the movie is based, and then made the second mistake of letting me read it. Judging by the trailer, Wanted would be a more-or-less standard action flick, with fetishistic close-up shots of bullets in flight and a loose grasp of natural law and an inexplicable hot chick, but the source material worried me.

Happily, Bekmambatov shows the same cheerful disregard for his source material using Wanted, the comic, as he did using Night Watch, the novel, and pretty well completely rewrites the whole story. After we watched the movie, Eileene went back and re-examined the comic for points of similarity. She found four, and I added the last.

1. The central character’s name is the same: Wesley Gibson. (Calling Wesley a “protagonist” in the comic would abuse the notion that the protagonist propels some kind of action forward.
2. He starts the story in a crap job, aware that his nominal best friend is fucking his girlfriend.
3. Some people die. Some of these die because Wesley shoots them.
4. Wesley meets his father, presumed dead.
5. Wesley suffers regular beatings in training to toughen him up.

…aaaaand that’s about it. The nature of the conspiracy he joins, the nature of his father, his father’s crucial relationship with the conspiracy, the nature of the plot—heck, the very existence of a plot—these are all changed.

Good job, too. The comic reads like it comes from a maladjusted ten-year-old who is just beginning to learn to swear in earnest. In the comic, Wesley and his friends aren’t hyperactive assassins; they’re outright supervillains. Yes, supervillains, because the maladjusted ten-year-old mentality is angry at the world, and superheroes don’t get to kill everyone they hate. Which is everyone. What’s Wesley’s superpower? He’s really good at killing people. That's it. No laser-beam eyes or flying or super-speed, just killing people. What’s his inventive supervillainous handle? “The Killer.” Isn’t that so fucking cool you could just wet your pants? Way cooler than someone with real superpowers, and way, way cooler than the guy made out of the shit of the 666 evilest people in the whole world, including Hitler. He and his supervillain friends took over the world already, and part of the initiation is just running free, brutally killing everyone who ever pissed you off and raping anyone who takes your fancy, because that’s what the maladjusted ten-year-old would like to do. And they get to travel to alternate universes and kill the superheroes all over again, any time they want, because they’re that cool. And they all belong to a super-secret conspiracy, which is why you’ve never heard of them. And they get to tell cops and bosses and even mean old teachers to fuck off any time they want, and the authorities have to cower in fear, because somehow they all know about the super-secret conspiracy the rest of us have never herad of and know they have to obey. But Wesley will probably kill and rape them anyway, because he can. And they get to rewrite history any time they want, so it never really matters when they fuck something up anyway., which is mostly everyone, because they figuratively fuck everyone up the ass all the time. It’s the worst thing the maladjusted ten-year-old can possibly think of, ass-fucking. And he thinks about it a lot. Waaay to much, if you catch my drift. And when even other supervillains break their truce, Wesley can kill them all, too, all at once, because he's just that cool. And, and, and Wesley probably rapes you in the ass, too, and you just don’t know it because his friends can fuck with your head that way, and he makes you cry and beg him to stop, but then he and his superpowered friends rewrite history so you’re really a faggot and you really like it, and beg him to do it again, but Wesley won’t because he’s powerful and cruel and he has a hot girlfriend already anyway who bangs him all the time for no particular reason and he shoots you anyway and then he goes back in time to put you through it all again only this time you’re a faggot the whole time and his friends rape you in the ass too, including this one made out of shit and…

Well, you get the idea. It’s not just shallow adolescent power fantasy material, it’s stupid shallow adolescent power fantasy material, something to make you feel embarrassed on the author's behalf because he hasn't the good sense to feel embarrassed for himself. It fails to shock with its rudeness and depravity, which is the author’s intent, although it may surprise you with its banality.

And the movie? Well, it’s a more-or-less standard action flick, with fetishistic close-up shots of bullets in flight and a loose grasp of natural law and an inexplicable hot chick. Go ahead and see it if you like that kind of thing.