“Wanted” based on the six issue comic book miniseries by Mark Millar and directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the man that brought us the Russian blockbuster “Night Watch“, features so much over the top action that it bares comparison to 2007’s “Shoot’Em Up”. However, "Wanted" has the character development and story elements that elevate it beyond just your regular action movie. Yeah it’s a summer movie, and it’s fun and cool, but “Wanted” also has an appealing story and explores some intriguing ideas.

In “Wanted”, Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is nobody special, he has a regular job and an awful boss. His girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend and he does nothing about it. His daily life is filled with boredom and routine. Wesley further proves to himself that he is a nobody when he does a Google search for his name that results in zero matches. Wesley is a nobody until he meets Fox (Angelina Jolie) at a convenience store where he is picking up pills for his panic attacks. Fox is there to protect Wesley from an assassination attempt by Cross (Thomas Kretschmann). Fox saves Wesley and takes him back to The Fraternity, a secret society of assassins. Sloan (Morgan Freeman) explains to Wesley that his father was one of the world’s greatest assassins until Cross killed him. Sloan also informs him that his panic attacks are nothing more than a heighten sense of state and it is an ability that very few people have, but that his father had too. Wesley refuses to believe, and returns to his regular life, but after having heard what he is capable of it is not long before he begins to believe.

What really makes “Wanted” stand out is the conflict and drama in it’s story. The writers did a lot more than just set up the story and let the action take over which is unusual for these type of movies, but a welcomed surprise. There are a series of twist and turns the keep the story interesting. The action is of the type that defies the laws of physics and relies heavily on special effects. It relies so much on special effects that I don’t think enough attention was paid to better choreographing the fight scenes. Just image if they had choreographed similarly to what Kurt Wimmer did with “Equilibrium“. If I have one gripe with the movie it the choreographing of the fight scenes.

The performance by Angelina Jolie was decent, James McAvoy was good and Morgan Freeman was awesome. Morgan Freeman is real good at playing these bad-ass characters. His interpretation of Sloan is pitch perfect.

I also loved the concept of the Fraternity who treats assassination as a religion. One of the coolest concepts of the movie is the process by which the Fraternity decides who to kill. They don’t kill for killing sake, for each target is chosen by faith, and they do it for the betterment of society. Another interesting aspect of the movie was Wesley's life as a cubicle dweller. The scenes with Wesley’s boss and his interaction at work resemble those of "Fight Club" and while they are not as good, they do come close to capturing the spirit of that movie.

“Wanted” is a summer movie, and it does deliver in the action department and while I thought the choreographing of the fight sequences could have been better, the story and ultra cool special effects will give you a tingly feeling inside. I know a lot of people will compare the special effects of this movie with those of “The Matrix“, specifically the bullet time scenes, but at the least they improved on them with the curving bullet effect.

Review By Milton Brayson
milton@smartcine.com

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