The trailers for the movie "Wanted" leaves me with a very mixed feeling.
I thought the book was well written but ultimately vile. The protagonist goes from one extreme, where he's a downtrodden, spineless weakling with a cheating girlfriend, to a psychotic with the connection to murder and rape regular people with impunity while committing acts of villainy on a multi-dimensional scale. He was never likable, and giving him a happy ending felt like a unexpected kick in the taint.
While I respect what the book was trying to do, and it does it quite powerfully, but ultimately it left me with a sick feeling in my stomach.
The movie in typical Hollywood contrast has changed the super villains who rule the world into a guild of assassins who use prognostication to kill people for the good of mankind.
Essentially, even in the broad strokes of the trailer they've turned an intelligent but ultimately vile storyline into a much more morally conventional story and possibly much stupider one.
Honestly, a part of me is relieved, because it really was an ugly little book, but by the same token I'm often impressed by fiction that can make me uncomfortable and even upset, and it'd be nice if a movie of that scale could replicate that feeling.
I know a big budget film almost never allows for such moral fuzziness, but this is one story whose movie adaptation really has really cost it more than usual.
I thought the book was well written but ultimately vile. The protagonist goes from one extreme, where he's a downtrodden, spineless weakling with a cheating girlfriend, to a psychotic with the connection to murder and rape regular people with impunity while committing acts of villainy on a multi-dimensional scale. He was never likable, and giving him a happy ending felt like a unexpected kick in the taint.
While I respect what the book was trying to do, and it does it quite powerfully, but ultimately it left me with a sick feeling in my stomach.
The movie in typical Hollywood contrast has changed the super villains who rule the world into a guild of assassins who use prognostication to kill people for the good of mankind.
Essentially, even in the broad strokes of the trailer they've turned an intelligent but ultimately vile storyline into a much more morally conventional story and possibly much stupider one.
Honestly, a part of me is relieved, because it really was an ugly little book, but by the same token I'm often impressed by fiction that can make me uncomfortable and even upset, and it'd be nice if a movie of that scale could replicate that feeling.
I know a big budget film almost never allows for such moral fuzziness, but this is one story whose movie adaptation really has really cost it more than usual.