Anyway; awesome, well written, elaborate and incisive review. These are the kinds of scoops AICN was built upon.

The lesser (in seniority only) brass are really bringing the goods lately, which is really helping pull AICN through this difficult era of Emperor Harry's temporary (hopefully) insanity and excessive pandering.

good lord.

Obi Wan = Gandalf, Han Solo is Aragorn, The death Star is Mount doom and LUke Skywalker is the little farmboy Hobbit sent to deliver the ring/bomb and destroy the whole damn shebang! Oh and Darth Vader = Sauron or Sauruman or whatever but you get me drift! Hell he even knicked the glowing swords! the tea-leaf!

The only thing that makes me nervous: combining magic (Sorceresses) with science fiction (skyfurnaces). Maybe it'll work in "The Red Star" the way spice power did in "Dune," but I generally dislike combinations of such genre-crossing elements. Someone using sorcery on a spaceship? Come on, that's just lazy. What's all the technology there for then? Fact is, your society wouldn't have developed technology if magic was the most powerful element in your universe. Magic and science almost never mix. "Dune" and precious few other stories by great authors are the exceptions, not the rule. "Dune" works because the terminology is cloaked in far-futuristic philosophies and practices, so alien that we don't quite know what's magic and what's science. But naming a character in a science fiction story "sorceress" because she uses "magic" leaves no doubt. It's clumsy and lazy, in my opinion, and bends physical rules and relationships in silly ways. I'd rather not ever read it in a book or see it onscreen.

Here's to hoping the "magic" in "The Red Star" isn't really "magic," but a force based in physical possibility. And I wish Bekmambetov the best as he moves ahead with this project.

Really? A failure? At what, exactly? Making films that caress your personal sense of what's totally awesome in the world? Because this sounds like you projecting your personal sense of failure onto someone else.

Bekmambetov isn't the greatest filmmaker ever, I agree. He's heavily spectacle-based, no doubt, but he also worked his ass off, pulled himself up by his bootstraps in Tashkent, and got "Night Watch" made. Not an easy thing to do in Russia, to put it mildly.

I'm not a huge fan of "Night Watch" or "Day Watch," but I respect the fact he made a film that single-handedly thrust Russia into the craft of 21st century filmmaking. And with the success of "Wanted," he's pushing ahead with his career like no Russian ever has.

A failure? A poser?

Go look in your mirror.

umm these comments and others like them remind me that one should not have high expectations when it comes to Hollywood. I think the "Wanted" defenders have a point, but the sad truth is: Warshawski, Lucas, Spielberg, and other top action adventure filmmakers have borrowed with more panache, more elegants and less obviousness.

absofuckinlutely. if you want to write a story that necesitates this type of new terminology (sort of a cyborg lexicon, if you'll excuse the pun, I'm more referencing bell hooks than star trek) then you have to be willing to take it in a new direction. if not, you might still make a couple hundred million, but you have no hope of a place in the pantheon of sci-fi. star wars built on old sci-fi in a new way, much the same way indiana jones built on those old serials of that type. but it took it in a new direction. star wars gave us glimpses (and lines like the one you mentioned) of this expanded universe, but it was always grounded in this tiny personal stories. the dialogue might be clunky, but the characters are not. han solo will be in the top 10 great film characters as long as people make films.

similarly, indiana jones is great because instead of being the unshaven meaty hero, with a nerdy professor sidekick, like in all those serials (or The Mummy) he is BOTH the hero and the nerdy professor.

you can build on these genres, and even on their staples, especially regarding the language and it's hints at the world, but you have to do something new.

beaks, it's good to have you back. I love a good "this movie made me cum!!" review as much as the next fanboy, but it's nice to excercise the old brain muscle like before.

I've been coming to the site since it's inception, and I think Mori and Quint are starting to really engage again in a way that I haven't seen them in a while. not knocking them, I just think they both had things going on, and spent a lot of time on sort of the logistics. quint's movie a day, some of the AMAZING interviews he's done...it's really fun, and a pleasure. welcome back to that, and to you as well.

now back to a typical argument between 2 guys named "Wesley Snipes" and "Thunderbolt Ross"...already in progress...

not trying to be mean...shit I have been in more than my fair share...hell I was here in the fuckin' 90's...I don't even WANT to tell you what these arguments were like when the backstreet boys were still in power...

Fuck.

After slogging through Night and Daywatch, I couldn't figure out why the fuck anyone gave a shit. After wasting valuable lifespan on a (free) viewing of Wanted, I'm now convinced that nobody does give a shit. They'll finance anything because they know the moviegoing public will throw fistfulls of cash at literally anything that turns up in a theater.

(In all honesty, I've known this for awhile now.)

If you like Wanted, you are on the fast-track to fuckhole.

Sorry about being a foulmouthed lowbrow ass about it, but I am aghast at the notion of this guy reaping buckets of moolah by churning out more tripe, of which we have too much to begin with.

UNLESS it principally stars Eddie Murphy in a live-action role.

That is all.