Evening movie review

BOTTOM LINE: The stylish, comic book action is fun for a while but this well cast film is ridiculous and stupid, wearing out its welcome about half way through its running time.

THE GOOD: There’s a stylish, comic book action quality to “Wanted” that throws you off a little bit when you first see it but then becomes quite fun as the story develops. The idea of a secret fraternity of assassins is a cool place to start an action film, and the filmmakers have another ace in the hole by selecting a stellar cast to populate the assassin characters. James McAvoy stars as Wesley Gibson, an average guy, stuck in a dead end job, his best friend is having an affair with his girlfriend and his life is generally going nowhere. His life takes a dramatic turn when one of the assassins from the fraternity tries to kill him but is saved by Fox (played by a very cool Angelina Jolie). She brings him to meet Sloan (played enigmatically by Morgan Freeman) who tells Wesley that he is destined to be an assassin. After going through the requisite training, Wesley becomes a very talented assassin but becomes embroiled in a plot where nothing is as it seems to be. The best parts of this film relate to its premise and action sequences. The film is fast and furious, with fast editing, fast action, and well choreographed stunts. One assassination where Wesley kills his target by getting his car flipped over the top of the target’s sun-roof is particularly fun. It’s great to see Morgan Freeman actually playing a villain; he delivers a rather understated, but ruthless performance. The film never drops its pace while offering some moments of comedy in between the big action sequences; the best moment comes when Wesley returns to his apartment to get his father’s gun and his girlfriend starts telling him how much of a loser he is. Fox walks in and start kissing Wesley passionately, much to his girlfriend’s dismay and jealousy.

THE BAD: “Wanted” has an adolescent thrill that is okay for the first half hour but it quickly degenerates in to complete stupidity. The basic premise for the whole film is the assassins choose targets based on the names generated from a weaving in a textile fabric that is randomly generated at their hideout. In essence, those targets are based on fate. On first glance, it’s hard to see how a group of otherwise intelligent people would be naïve enough to believe in this ideal for a thousand years without the possibility of corruption (as happens in the film). It’s even more incredible that none of the assassins, until Wesley shows up, ever question Sloan’s credibility given he’s the only one who ever has access to the weaving room that generates the names of the targets. The film’s problems unfortunately do not end there. James McAvoy is a solid actor but even he cannot elevate the pathetic direction his character is given in the first half of the film. I wanted to shoot him; but even if you can stand to watch him being such a walk-over loser, the film expects you to believe that he could go from that character to one of the most lethal assassins in history in just six weeks. Once he becomes the assassin he’s quite cool but his character and development is ridiculous. Angelina Jolie is lethal and cool in this film, but she isn’t given much to do aside from look hot and kick ass in the action sequences. Terence Stamp surprisingly appears midway through the film and is excellent, but you have to wonder why he agreed to be in this ridiculous adolescent fantasy; he just doesn’t fit in. Even Morgan Freeman, who is for the most part great, delivers a speech at the end of the film where he does not look all that natural. The action sequences, which are the biggest selling point in this film, become more and more ridiculous as the film progresses. The train sequence is perhaps the worst culprit when it derails on a bridge going over a massive gorge. Train cars hang off the bridge and people shoot at each other as each train car plummets in to the gorge; it’s fun but it’s over the top. Perhaps the worst thing of all is the last shot in the film; Wesley gives a speech about how pointless his life used to be and how all of us are now suffering what he used to suffer. His choice was to do something about it and now he lives the exciting life of an assassin. He turns to the camera and says, “what have you done lately?” Ordinarily, the point would have been absolutely true, but considering the film is so stupid and the delivery of his speech so condescending, the question he poses is like a slap in the face rather than a revelation. At that point, I almost hoped an assassin’s bullet put him out of his misery, as with the rest of this silly film.

There is a slight sea change at your local multiplex, depending on where you live, and it marks an attempt by theater owners and chains to generate more revenue as the amount of competition increases.

A handful of theater chains are showing live baseball, rock concerts, classic television shows and even opera up on there on the silver screen. It’s a reaction to the fact that consumers now have more choices than ever for their entertainment dollar, while in most cases the movie-going experience has not improved with it.

“I love film,” Thomas W. Stephenson Jr., president of Rave Motion Pictures, which operates in 11 states, recently told the New York Times, “but the simple fact is that we can’t count on movie attendance to grow.”

Stephenson is right. Movie attendance has basically flattened out. It increased less than 1 percent in 2007 after years of declining attendance even as the number of movies made increased. Simply put, there is no new revenue coming in.

The threats are even larger today, even though many theater owners may feel they have been down this road before. The introduction of television on the 50s and VHS in the 80s also posed threats but theaters came out of it fine.

Today, however, the biggest threat to an individual movie theater is not the multiplex down the road. The main competition is the consumers’ option to simply fire-up the Blu-Ray DVD on their high-def, big screen television or download movies on their iPod or computer.

The slowly evolving reaction to all that is to increase and vary the content in what is basically a content-driven business. It has been successful in its limited use. The Ziegfeld Theater in New York reported a quick sellout when it showed a live broadcast of a New York Mets game, complete with a live organist and team mascot.

There is another opportunity here, though, beyond finding new revenues. These new possibilities are only a first step for an individual theater or theater chain that can brand itself as a direct reflection of its customers. For the Ziegfeld Theater, its brand is already rooted in its long heritage. But for others, they can be something other than just another of tens of thousands of screens showing Indiana Jones eight times a day.

Brand as it is practiced by most is simply corporate identity. They tend to be most about who the company is, leaving no room for the customer. Think, for example, of Wachovia Bank, which went through a brand makeover more than five years ago based on “Uncommon Wisdom,” which meant that Wachovia was the expert. Not the customer who used Wachovia.

Therefore, consumers can’t see any room for themselves in the brand and that’s part of the reason why the bank recently announced a $708 million first-quarter loss. There are market and economic reasons for that loss, of course, but its brand hasn’t helped it much.

In the movie theater industry, the problem is that theaters have had little or no opportunity to have a brand at all - especially when multiplexes turned the grand theaters obsolete 20 years ago.

Movie theaters are dependent on negotiations with movie studios as they bid on the biggest movies in order to have some exclusivity in their area. Selling concessions at those blockbusters is a big business for the industry. But if you want to see Indiana Jones without the chatty audience, high-priced concessions and the inconvenience of the movie theater deciding when you get to watch, just wait. It’ll be on DVD or an on-demand service in a few months.

Right now, consumers are picking their movie house of choice, so to speak, based on content and location. In very, very few instances will consumers inconvenience themselves in order to experience a true theater of choice. Usually, the movie-going decision tree is like this: What Do I Want to See, Who is Showing It, What Time is It Showing. A theater is eliminated based on not living up to the questions in the decision tree or because it had a previous failure with that consumer.

A brand that is meaningful to target audiences and is positioned against the competition can give consumers a reason to choice, and covet being a part of that brand. Why not? To some it seems like a long step to have a brand in which consumers will inconvenience themselves and even pay more to be a part of that brand. But it’s not.

That’s where the new possibilities of content come in. If the selection of content is carefully done and the theater matches the experience to it, it can become always part of the considered set and even become a destination of choice.

The brand does have to do more than just match content with consumer, though. It has to “live” the brand in such a way that it becomes a reflection of that consumer. A theater than concentrates on, let’s say, opera and Broadway shows can build an exciting, high-class brand that can be the umbrella under which other improvements are developed: Serving wine and cheese, for example, or having bathroom attendants.

Brand gives you focus, and what movie theaters are often missing is that focus. Instead, most of them look and feel just like everyone else. Instead, they can tap into who the “theatergoer” is when they use that brand or experience the entertainment destination. There are a myriad of possibilities and the movement to add varied content may open the door to the theaters to think ahead and think of themselves as a brand and not just another delivery system.