Wanted

It's been awhile since I took in a Sunday afternoon matinee, so I decided to check out Wanted. I knew very little about it going in, other that what I saw in trailers.

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov and based on a comic book written by Mark Millar, the film is about Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), a young man very bored with his uneventful life. Wesley finds out that his father, who abandoned him as a baby, was really an assassin and part of a fraternity of assassins who was just murdered by another fraternity member.


Wesley is recruited into the fraternity by Fox (Angelina Jolie), who worked with his father. The head of the fraternity, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), schools Wesley on the ins and outs of the assassin game and his special ability that he always confused with anxiety attacks. The motto of the fraternity is "kill one, save a thousand", and feel that they get their orders from fate itself.


I enjoyed the film and thought it was very action packed and chock full of highly implausible feats. The crowds on the IMDB boards seem to identify it as being a cross between The Matrix and Fight Club. I wasn't familiar with the comic book or novel beforehand, but I thought the story was great with some unexpected twists and turns. I have to say that I hadn't expected to see McAvoy in a summer action blockbuster, given the hype for his turn in the Oscar winning Atonement. I thought Wesley's transformation was really good as he didn't start out good and cocky like most films where the "chosen one" has to be trained to fulfill their destiny. I also was reticent to see this because of Angelina Jolie.


Sometimes an actor will have their professional life eclipsed by tabloid press and none as much as the whole Aniston/Pitt/Jolie fiasco. I didn't want to see any of her movies since then because I couldn't seem to see her as anything else but that homewrecking hussy, and this is coming from someone who had a mad girl crush on Jolie until then. I saw it anyway and have to say I enjoyed her thoroughly. She did what she does best and should stick to roles like this where she smolders, looks sexy and is badass and stop trying so hard to be artsy and serious. The only thing I would have to add regarding Miss Jolie is this....damn girl, eat a sammich! Everybody else was awesome, too.

Highly enjoyable if you aren't expecting anything more than a pure, total and complete escapist popcorn flick.

More ramblings to come.....