ShoWest: Wanted!

Literally just walked out of the Universal preview presentation at ShoWest and saw some pretty cool stuff I thought I’d share before heading into a similar presentation for Warner Bros.

WANTED

By far the most impressive footage was what was shown for WANTED. They started off with the final trailer for the film, which you’ve probably seen already. But then afterwards added that just 48 hours ago they were able to finalize a scene and were happy to preview it for us. Lucky for us, it was the already famous Angelina-hanging-out-a-car scene.

It starts with James McAvoy in a supermarket going to the prescription counter. He sees something out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t see him but we see a shady looking dude in the corner. When we come back Angelina is standing right next to McAvoy. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he says. “You apologize too much,” she says. “Sorry…”

She explains she knew his father but he says his father died when he was just a baby. Nope, Angelina says he died yesterday on a rooftop and the man who killed him is standing right behind them. She then whips out a gun, starts shooting and pulls McAvoy to safety behind a display.

At this point, Angelina pulls out this massive periscope gun that can scope and shoot around corners. She looks for the assassin, he sees her and fires a bullet through all the food on a shelf, just narrowly missing her head. Angelina shoots out all the security mirrors and McAvoy takes the opportunity to escape. The assassin sees this, cuts him off and is about to take a shot when Angelina uses her periscope gun to blow up a propane tank right near the dude.

This gives McAvoy another opportunity for escape and he runs out the store and through the parking lot. The assassin hijacks a delivery truck and starts chasing him. Out of nowhere comes Angelina in the red sportscar you’ve seen in the trailer. She pulls a quick drift with the doors open, literally scooping McAvoy up and into the car and they are off with assassin in chase.

“What the f*ck just happened?!,” yells McAvoy as they’re speeding through the street. “Could you please tell me?” “Can you please be quiet?,” asks Angelina calmly. At this point she starts ramming a cop car in front of them to the shock of McAvoy. “What are you doing?!” She causes the cop car to crash into safety barrels causing a pile-up that she deftly navigates. They think this has lost the assassin but he turns up right behind them again as McAvoy says, “He’s f*ckin’ persistent, yo!”

Angelina is leaning out the window shooting at him but clearly this is not getting the job done. She starts blasting at her own windshield (“Why are you shooting OUR car?!”) and then punches it out. She climbs out the windshield using a nitrous tank to hold down the gas while she steers with her high heel (McAvoy is stuck right in between her legs).

A bus pulls in between the two cars and they think they’ve escaped again but assassin man shoots and spins a bullet right at them and blows out their tire. They’re now riding with sparks flying out from their rims as they approach a roadblock. Cop cars stopped and blocking them from going any further. Not to be denied, Angelina climbs back in and pulls off some crazy car move that flips them up and over the cop cars, on top of a bus passing by and then speeds off the bus, onto the road and takes off. She turns on the radio to “Do you like Pina Coladas…,” smiles and they ride off together.

To all the haters who’ve been saying this movie is too much like the MATRIX and blah, blah – forget it. This footage was insanely bad-ass. It’s incredibly over-the-top, it knows it and it uses that to give you a crazy adrenaline rush. I like that McAvoy plays the everyman well and reacts very much like how I think I would react (“What the f*ck just happened?!”). And I’m not the biggest Angelina Jolie fan in the world but she was damn good (and damn sexy). This should very well be on of the biggest action hits of the summer.

Universal had more footage including the new trailer for HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY, scenes from BABY MAMA and the teaser trailer for THE MUMMY 3, all of which I’ll get to soon. Right now it’s off to see some new stuff from DARK KNIGHT, SPEED RACER and more!