Super Wanted

Wanted’s goal is terribly simple: let the bullets fly, let cars crash, let blood flow and let the audience just hang on for the ride. It’s not rocket science to be sure, but what they’ve created here is a beautiful mess of violence, and while the Wanted is littered with flaws, the film makes it easy to get swept away.

Wesley Gibson is a 25 year-old account manager who doesn’t have much of a life. His boss berates him constantly, he suffers from a repetitive stress disorder, and his girlfriend is sleeping with his best friend. But things change for him when a woman named Fox shows up one day, and tells him that his father was the greatest assassin who ever lived, and that Wesley had a greater destiny waiting for him. He joins the Fraternity of Assassins, a group of killers who live by fatalistic code. After enduring their incredibly tough training, Wesley goes on a quest to kill the man that killed his father. But not is all that is seems.

Fans of the comic will no doubt notice that the movie’s synopsis doesn’t exactly match up with the source material. But really, you have to let it go, because in some ways, this story’s a lot better. Mark Millar’s original work seemed more interested in shocking you rather than telling a strong tale. The movie really reins it in, keeping the spirit in a much tighter package. It’s not perfect by any means: the third act gets bogged down by a stretched out monologue that shouldn’t really have been happening, some plot elements are absurd, the use of voiceover is hit-and-miss, and there’s a gaping plot hole that you could drive a dump truck through. But you won’t really get a chance to think about that, because the film throws absolutely everything at you.

Timur Bekmambetov is an absolute master of violence, a mad genius at crafting action scenes. Years of movie watching have probably made you think that you’ve seen it all when it comes to action, but you’re wrong. Bekmambetov is the conductor of a mad orchestra of violence, playing a rather powerful symphony of killing people and blowing stuff up. It’s breathtaking, and at the end of some of the sequences, you may feel like giving a person beside a high five. Bekmambetov takes a lot of old tricks and uses them in new, inventive ways. Slow motion shouldn’t feel this new and exciting, but it does here. Through the use of it, he allows even the bullets to have a story.

But while the action is great, what really makes this movie tick is James McAvoy. This film, with so many ridiculous elements to it, really hinged on the abilities of its lead actor. Which is to say: they’re really lucky to have James McAvoy. He’s probably the best actor of his generation, and his performance as Wesley pretty much carries you through the film. Angelina Jolie spends the entire film pretty much just looking tough, and she does that well enough. Morgan Freeman’s performance is a bit unremarkable, and the rest of the cast aren’t given all that much to do.

Wanted isn’t the smartest film you’re going to see, but it’s certainly one of the most fun. It’s just so relentless, and at times, even exhilarating. The film just throws the most absurd things at you, and Bekmambetov somehow makes it work with enough panache that it just leaves you smiling. And McAvoy’s carrying of this film is quite impressive as well. If there was just a little more discipline in the scriptwriting, this could have been a perfect little summer flick. But even in its current, flawed form, it’s just a lot of fun waiting to be had.