Wanted! A Review
How does a century old assassins guild with members that have mastered gun use to the point where they can impart curve in a bullet’s trajectory, like the massé shots in billiards, sound to you? What if they added the ability to increase their heartrate to incredible levels and pump an excess amount of adrenaline in their bodies to react faster than normal men and women? Sounds pretty interesting?
Well, that’s what Wanted is made up of and while it’s no Summer Blockbuster, it’s a decent action flick worth watching in the theaters for a matinee price.
The story revolves around a young man named Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) going through life apathetically. He has a deadend job, mean boss, cheating girlfriend, and an all around crappy life. Until he encounters Fox (Angelina Jolie) in a convenience store and his life turns upside down. He learns about his father, who left him and his mother when he was just born, and learns the lineage of weavers turned assassins that have gone through the ages killing people according to fate, maintaining balance in the world.
The film is based upon a comic miniseries by Mark Millar, which I’ve never read so can’t comment on how faithful the movie is to the written piece. However, the action scenes were great and there were some segments that caused chuckles in the theater. There was one scene that didn’t make sense after watching the entire movie, but still looked cool at the time. All the actors, ranging from Morgan Freeman to James McAvoy did a pretty good job. One actor I was pleasantly surprised to see was Konstantin Khabensky who is the main protagonist in Nightwatch and Daywatch (film adaptations to the wonderful books by Sergey Lukyanenko).
All in all, Wanted is worth watching in the theater to see those bullets curve and home in on their targets, but I’d say catch it at a discount.
