A "media watchdog" group in Britain have banned a TV ad campaign for the DVD release of the Angelina Jolie-James McAvoy thriller Wanted. In the ads, Angie Baby can be seen attempting to extract McAvoy's appendix through his mouth with her tongue in the middle of a "high-speed car chase before the pair turned and fired their guns in the direction of the viewer. For good measure, a voiceover," presumably delivered by somebody who never saw WALL-E, can be heard touting Wanted as "the coolest movie of the year". Critics of the ad have decided that all this amounts to the glamorization of violence, which is apparently actionable over there, a move that is probably the next step in the vile machinations of those who would bring us a New World Order. (Seriously, have you read the comments section there? It never gets old. Pack a sandwich.)

According to the Guardian, the ad "received just one complaint from the public, but the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it suggested that 'using guns was sexy and glamorous', which breached the code for television", and which also rates a resounding chorus of "No duh." The ASA previously banned "billboard posters for the film's theatrical release. These featured Jolie and McAvoy holding guns in a variety of positions in a comic book-style montage of pictures." One doesn't want to seem too much in support of high-speed chases and gaudy shootouts--though when it comes down to it, how much is too much, really?--but the groups' judgement does seem almost as arbitrary as it does schoolmarmish. This is one occasion when we might actually be able to get wholeheartedly behind a movie studio, if only Universal had taken the right approach in protesting the ASA's decision. (I'm picturing them hiring a large, heavyset man, who may perhaps have been in the employ of Ron and Reg Kray in his younger and more supple days, and having him go around to the home of each ASA member to swat them repeatedly about the face and neck with a rolled-up newspaper.) Instead, Universal chose to put out a release implying that the ASA's objections to Wanted are actually based on their being uncomfortable with seeing a "strong woman" in an action movie. This charge seems wrongheaded in at least a couple of areas, starting with the idea that the definition of a "strong" woman is someone who acts like the Terminator with cleavage (okay, with more cleavage), and not excluding the fact that terms like "woman", "human being", and "mere mortal" seem inadequate to describing Angelina Jolie. Our final verdict: there are no heroes here.