The high-adrenaline shoot-em-up blockbuster “Wanted,” from Russian director Timur Bekmanbetov, hit theaters Friday, setting the bar (and a high bar, I might add) for summer action flicks to come.
“Wanted” star James McAvoy (“The Last King of Scotland,” “Atonement”) as Wesley Gibson, a self-acknowledged loser, is depressed and going nowhere in all areas of his life. He has no money, a dead-end job with an overbearing, annoying supervisor, and a cheating girlfriend (whose adulterous lover is none other than Wesley’s backstabbing best friend).
This was the first thing I loved about this movie. The talents of McAvoy and Bekmanbetov make it very easy to sympathize with (and possibly even relate to) Wesley’s seemingly meaningless existence.
Cue Angelina Jolie’s character, fittingly named Fox, who is Wesley’s savior and guardian angel. Fox provides Wesley with an opportunity to leave his life behind by joining an organization known as the Fraternity, a secret society of assassins to which Wesley’s father belonged until his untimely murder in the breathtaking opening scene.
The Fraternity’s head honcho, Sloan, a cold performance from Morgan Freeman, and other members with equally groan-inducing nicknames (The Repairman, Gunsmith, The Exterminator, etc.) train Wesley to take his father’s place as the greatest hired gun to ever live and to exact the Fraternity’s revenge on the mysterious rogue assassin, Cross.
The set up of the film was something that I thought was particularly well done. It allows just enough time for viewers to understand what exactly is going on in the film, without completely insulting their intelligence. This is a remarkable improvement from Bekmanbetov’s previous films “Nochoy Dozor” and “Dnvenoy Dozor” (“Night Watch” and “Day Watch,” respectively), for which viewers are almost required to do a little research so that they are not totally lost.
The film’s use of computer-generated imagery was something that I also found to be noteworthy. Now, I am pretty picky when it comes to CGI. In fact, I am pretty much against the use of it entirely. Too much of it (especially when done poorly) can ruin a film completely – see “I Am Legend” for an example of this. Don’t get me wrong, though. I can understand when CGI is necessary in a film, especially a film like “Wanted.” However, some filmmakers seem to use this as an excuse to go overboard, and subsequently make me unhappy.
Fortunately, this was not the case for “Wanted.” I was pleasantly surprised to find that the CGI accentuates the film, rather than the other way around (which is usually the case with action flicks such as this).
The film also has very little depth. This might seem like a negative, but I assure you, it is not. Throughout the film, the viewer is frivolously exposed to weighty themes of finding one’s self, fulfilling destiny and the aimlessness of life in general. Concentrating any more on any of these themes would be a bit too much for a film that is already heavy on the visuals.
I will say one negative thing about the film. There are quite a few aspects of “Wanted” that are reminiscent of another famous shoot-em-up blockbuster: “The Matrix”. Space-and-time-bending special effects, clichéd nicknames and a bunch of talk about fate and destiny couldn’t help but remind me of the 1999 cult classic. As expected, this partly took away from the originality of “Wanted,” but not so much that it ruined my movie-going experience.
From the first scene to the last line, given stonily by McAvoy, “Wanted” is a blood-pumping adrenaline ride, bred perfectly for the summer movie audience.
Rating: Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language and some sexuality.
Run time: 110 minutes
Ian Bostick can be reached at [email protected].
