Wanted - The Movie - Great Fun

Wanted:
Directed by: Timbor Bekmambetov
Written by: Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, Chris Morgan
Starring: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman,
Angelina Jolie, Thomas Kretschmann, Common

Wanted is two thumbs up.

It is similar in ways to the Bourn Identity, Spider Man and the Matrix (especially in special effects) and more recently Iron Man. If you liked those movies you will most likely like this.

One reviewer ( at Salon.com) hit it on the head with this comment:

(Angelina Jolie), carves out a distinctly human space in the midst of the movie's outlandish, joyously depraved violence. "Wanted" is fast-moving and bloody, enjoyable even within its apologetically generic limits. But James McAvoy is its real secret weapon:


With his X-ray blue eyes and lips that look bitten with anxiety, he has the miraculous ability to fool us into thinking there's really something at stake here."

Robert Ebert warns: "“Wanted,” directed by a hot Russian actionmeister named Timur Bekmambetov, is a film entire lacking in two organs I always appreciate in a movie: a heart and a mind. It is mindless, heartless, preposterous. By the end of the film, we can’t even believe the values the plot seems to believe, since the plot is deceived right along with us. The way to enjoy this film is to put your logic on hold, along with any higher sensitivities that might be vulnerable and immerse yourself as if in a video game."

And maybe he's right, on one hand. But there is a deeper message that I took from the film- the stupidity to blindly commit violent acts( because your superiors told you too- after brainwashing you.)

The basic plot of the story is a young guy in a bad relationship and in a boring job, discovers that his father who left his mother and he when he was seven- was a member of an elite group of assassins. (With the religious reference some might suspect a little hat tip towards the Knights of the Templar as portrayed in the Di Vinci Code). Not only is he the son of one, if not the best assassin, but he has a unique skill of focused attention- something he had thought was severe anxiety, and was taking medication for.

As a reviewer, I thought McAvoy did the stand out job, followed closely by the special effect people. Jolie and and Morgan Freedman were greatly limited in capturing caricatures that meant `more' than just roles.

Another Hat Tip to the review at 353 Review whose haiku review is on target.

KILLING CREW
BOOMERANG BULLETS
MINDLESS FUN

Review by Paul Grant (Follower of Basho)