Wanted

Venue - KLCC on the weekends

Food - Popcorn in a bucket

Oddly enough there was a lot of hype for this movie in Hollywood. There’s Angie, there’s action, there’s Morgan and his merry killing men. Surely this is enough for any moviegoer to start ogling over the prospects of slow motion shooting scenes?

Training was always poorly financed at The Fraternity

The story revolves around Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) who leads a mundane life in a random financial firm. Like most of us, he has an extreme dislike to his job and starts to wonder if there was more to life than this. Things change drastically when Wesley discovers that he isn’t just a boring person, but indeed the son to the most lethal assassin that ever lived. His father, who had left him as a child, was recently assassinated by an equally as good assassin named Cross and is now coming after Wesley. Enter Fox (Angelina Jolie), who is a trained assassin and persuades Wesley to join The Fraternity (a special organisation of assassins) to bring balance to the world and avenge his father’s death.

Last time anybody stereotyped a lady driver

The movie has a fantastic opening scene where Fox is there to save Wesley from being killed by Cross. What follows is a full action car chase scene which is inclusive of hard hitting assassin type of skills as well as some moaning from Angelina (bet you think I’m making this up). You get the sense of how it might feel like to be a hitman from the training that Wesley gets and just at that moment you might actually start to think that this wasn’t such a bad movie to pay for. It is a known fact that most action movies put very little effort into plots and story development. Wanted had none of the above.

Wesley was never a desk person

At no point whatsoever does the movie give any space to reasoning and the natural laws of physics. Terms such as the curve bullet and flying out of buildings onto other buildings should be clearly left in science fiction movies or the next Harry Potter film. Our hero was clearly build up to be Luke Skywalker with ability in this film, but nowhere are we even convinced that he seems to have any muscle bound talent. Wesley might probably have been played by the wrong actor who hardly looks like an action hero and more like an awkward school teacher. Wanted is a complete mess and even the bonus of seeing the bare back of Angelina Jolie isn’t enough to cover the shame of watching a crappy action flick.

It should be noted that Wanted was actually based on a comic book. That would explain most of the action scenes and some of the death defying moments our hero encounters.

Ratings – 2/5

Is Nothing Like – The Bourne Trilogy.