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This weekend's big action film, Wanted, is a decent film that's really taken down several notches by its trailers and commercials.

This movie actually does have a pretty good amount of wiz-gang-WOW! to it. The central characters with their superhuman abilities can do crazy car stunts, bend bullets in mid-flight, perceive the passage of time more slowly, and all manner of other cool things that actually are kind of neat despite all us movie-goers having already seen somewhat similar concepts in The Matrix, Dark City, and a few other films.

But the trouble is this: the trailers and commercials give away almost everything that's even slightly fresh. I believe there's a clip from every single action beat of the movie in the trailer that has run ad nauseum before other films for weeks. And the material is not that different enough that it has the kind of novelty to withstand this. Because whatever minor differences the film may bring, it brings a half dozen of the familiar trappings of the genre as well...

A main character plucked from a life of mediocrity to realize his greatness. A training montage to unlock his potential. Reluctance to embrace his destiny. You haven't seen the particular stunts, but you basically have seen this movie before. And if you've seen the trailer, then you've seen the particular stunts too.

It's perhaps not too suprising then, though a bit strange, that the most compelling material of the movie is in the first 20 minutes or so, before all the action starts. The film sets up the normal grind of a life for the main character in a very fun and stylized way. It's full of humor and a bit edgy. It's vaguely evocative of Fight Club, not necessarily in the particulars, but in the same way it's a movie making of meal of the miserable daily existence of a character. I feel like if only some of the humor and wry edge of this chunk of the movie had carried through the whole thing, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

Ultimately, I give the movie a C+. But I think if I'd never seen a trailer for it and had gone in "blind," I would have rated it a B- instead. So that's my recommendation. If you like action movies and somehow missed the trailers for this, you should give it a shot. Otherwise, take a pass until DVD, if then.