Angelina Jolie Movie:

Editorial Review:
As the impresario behind gravity-defying Russian blockbuster Night Watch, it's inevitable that Hollywood would come calling for Timur Bekmambetov. With a studio budget and an international cast, including two Oscar winners, Timur cooks up a Hong Kong-styled actioner bursting with fast cars and big guns. Our unlikely hero is mild-mannered Chicago accountant Wesley Gibson (Atonement's James McAvoy), whose father died when he was a tot. Wesley never learned to stand up for himself, and his girlfriend, boss, and best buddy all take advantage until the seductive Fox (Angelina Jolie) rescues him from a sharpshooter named Cross (The Pianist’s Thomas Kretschmann). After which, she whisks him away to a mansion on the edge of town to meet the other members of the Fraternity, where leader Sloan (Morgan Freeman) informs Wesley that Cross, a rogue agent, executed his father. Sloan believes Wesley has the goods to take him out, so he undergoes the Fraternity's brutal training regimen (Marc Warren and Common dish up some of the abuse). When he's ready, Sloan sends him out to fulfill his duty, but matters become complicated when Wesley finds out someone isn't telling the truth, leading our former milquetoast to exact an elaborate revenge. For those who've been following McAvoy's career to date, Wanted will surely come as a surprise. In adapting Mark Millar's comic series, Timur offers buckets of blood and a smidgen of depth, but fans of The Matrix and Mr. and Mrs. Smith will want to give this one a look. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Wanted [Blu-ray] Reviews:
Based on a Mindless Comic Book.....
2008-08-17 - Based on the Mark Miller comic book, The movie does not work because Jolie is in it, and she can not act. More, the source material is nothing but porn and zero story with the writer not knowing anything about story plot or the elements of drama. It's a Brainless Comic Book, and a brainless movie.

Assassins
2008-08-12 - The movie reminds me of the computer game series Thief. Full of intrique and action and violence. But that is what being part of the dark side entails. I think this movie also reminds me of the action movies of the 1980s - Robocop, Predator, those classic full time action thrills - but with an espionage theme.

A Visually Stunning Action Extravaganza...
2008-08-02 - With the massive success of numerous comic book films over the last decade or so, most of which have been based on well-known characters, eventually the Hollywood studios would gain enough confidence in the genre to tread into somewhat unknown territory by attempting to adapt lesser-known comic books. Hollywood has previously dabbled with the somewhat obscure characters and comic books to a small degree, although their success rate has been hit and miss; the attempts that worked, and worked very well I might add, were films like "Men in Black" or the blockbuster "300"; however, the ones that missed seemed to strike out just as massively as the others had succeeded, examples would be "Elektra", the spin-off from "Daredevil" and "Zoom: Academy for Superheroes". The appeal for movie studios to adapt more unknown titles would seem a somewhat risky proposition, but Universal had found great success with their gamble on `Hellboy', so perhaps their confidence was a bit stronger than most. Which brings us to Universal's most recent film adaptation based on a lesser-known comic book, the critically praised and fan boy approved, hard-edged and extremely violent "Wanted" based on Mark Millar's comic book miniseries of the same name.

"Wanted" is the story of a weak-willed accountant named Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), who lives an unenviable life where his girlfriend cheats on him, his boss verbally abuses him, and essentially everyone around him does nothing but take advantage of him every minute of his life. One moment everything in his life seems to be as mundane as ever, until a sexy woman by the name of Fox (Angelina Jolie) saves him from a would-be assassin and his routinely boring life. Now, Wesley is offered the chance of a lifetime from a mysterious man named Sloan (Morgan Freeman), who leads a group of assassins called The Fraternity, to embrace his hidden killer instinct and become the assassin he was destined to be.

With Hollywood's successful comic book adaptations it seems a good rule of thumb would be to retain as much of the source material as possible, or else the comic fan base will turn on the property faster than you'd believe. Generally, I completely agree with the rule of staying true to the comic book material, and almost every single time an adaptation strays too far from its origins the movie flops massively; however, with "Wanted" I would have to be cliché in saying that sometimes rules are made to be broken. Helmed by Russian director Timur Bekmambetov making his American directorial debut, and written by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (writers of "3:10 to Yuma"), along with Chris Morgan ("The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift"), "Wanted" loosely follows the storyline of the comic book miniseries written by acclaimed writer Mark Millar. The movie changes some of the characters from the miniseries, removes all of the costumes (aside from some subtle nods with Angelina Jolie's leather attire), along with the notion that superheroes and villains existed at one point but no longer; however, with all these changes being made from the source material, series creator Mark Millar was still in approval of the production, even acknowledging his own wish to have removed the costumes from the comic book, though he never got around to it.

The screenplay is a mixture of reality based and somewhat science-fiction tinged dialogue and mind-bending action sequences, mixed with an interesting approach to the concept of predestination, all fitting perfectly together for a film in the vein of "The Matrix". The story is extremely fast-paced, providing a semi-origin tale that takes the traditional origin sequences and puts its own spin on them, along with some truly innovative special effects sequences, and enough action set pieces to satisfy even the most ardent of action junkies. The characters are not the deepest you'll find in a movie, comic book or otherwise, but there's enough development sprinkled throughout to keep each character interesting for the audience, and not leave them waiting impatiently for the next fight to occur.

After so many CGI-intensive movies being released year after year, enabling directors and their special effects wizards to create virtually anything their imaginations can conceive of, it is surprising to me to still be able to watch a movie that manages to achieve some originality in the realm of CGI and action sequences. I thought I had seen almost anything that Hollywood could come up with by this point, but director Timur Bekmambetov and his team of creative special effects masters have crafted a truly awesome visual experience that will leave you saying, "Wow, I have never seen that before!" For some, "Wanted" seemed to be the movie that the two `Matrix' sequels (especially the final one, "The Matrix Revolutions") should have been. I for one enjoyed the two `Matrix' sequels, but that's for another time, either way "Wanted" is definitely a movie that is just as innovative in its presentation as anything found in `The Matrix' trilogy. Although the storyline isn't nearly as deep or complicated, or even confusing in some spots, as `The Matrix' trilogy, I believe "Wanted" is still just as much of a fun and entertaining experience as the former.

Of course, the success of this movie wouldn't be possible without the terrific work done by the three leads in the movie, James McAvoy ("Atonement"), Angelina Jolie ("Mr. and Mrs. Smith"), and Morgan Freeman ("The Dark Knight"). It is a testament to the talent of these superstars to be able to give credibility, and even some depth to such a far-fetched story, and still be able to walk away with their respect intact and their "cool" factor definitely through the roof. Anybody that has seen any of James McAvoy's previous films will no doubt be surprised by not only his choice of signing on to a movie such as this, but also by the fact that he pulls off the role of an action hero surprisingly well. Angelina Jolie is no stranger to action heroines due to her successful turns in the `Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' movies and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", though lately she has done more serious dramatic acting, it was nice to see her cut loose once again and still look just as good doing it as she ever did. Veteran actor Morgan Freeman is another big surprise to find in this movie, sure he's done the last two `Batman' films, but this role comes much more out of left field than any of his previous work, yet he still gives a great performance. On a side note, there is something strangely humorous about hearing Morgan Freeman channel his inner Samuel L. Jackson at one point in this film.

"Wanted" is by far one of the most visually impressive action films you will ever see, with an interesting story that moves at break neck speed, but doesn't allow for a whole lot of character development, although you don't really miss it. The movie is extremely violent and proud of it I might add, approaching the action genre with a boldness to push itself hard into an R rating, a move that many films (action or otherwise) seem afraid to do here lately.

"Wanted" is rated R for violence, language, and brief nudity/sexuality.

an intelligent, high paced action thriller that's a lot of fun!
2008-07-27 - Finally a thriller that has thrills, superb visual effects, and A-list stars (Morgan Freeman, James McAvoy, and Angelina Jolie - all three are great in this), a plotline that makes sense! The protagonist, Wesley Gibson, is played by a very buff and deliciously handsome James McAvoy, an account loser whose life is completely nonexistent - he doesn't even come up in a Google search! When The Fraternity, a group of trained assassins comes calling he realizes that big guns, big sums of money, and tight-skin leather jackets also have their price. A very clever, well-done shoot-them-up film that's a great popcorn fare and is enjoyable to watch.

Absolutely shocked i didn't hate it...
2008-07-22 - I'm about as jaded as the next person, so i went into this expecting to hate it. Cliched action scenes? Check. Over-use of cgi? Check. Ridiculous lapses of logic or sense? Check. Shaky-camera close-ups(a personal annoyance)? Check.

But wait...what's this? Did i care for the lead character and root for him? Check. Was i kept entertained throughout most of the film? Check. Was Angelina Jolie's character kept in line to allow the movie to focus on our protaganist? Check.

Honestly, i didn't know much about this film(or its origins) except for its generic trailer that featured that idiotic scene where A.J. 'picks up' McAvoy's character in that car. I thought that headache-inducing scene in the actual movie was terrible too(see my complaint about shaky-camera close-ups). But here's the thing, i was eventually won over by James Mcavoy and his performance and once i put my "that can't possibly happen" mentality behind, i thouroughly enjoyed the film believe it or not. (and it's not that easy for me, as on a related note, i tried to put that mentality behind for Indiana Jones 4 and still couldn't enjoy it that much.)

Here's the test for WANTED though. Early in the film, if you can't accept the scene where an assassin jumps from one building to another building and think to yourself "ok, so this isn't a standard assassins movie" then you might as well ask for a refund or stop the dvd right then and there. But if you can accept the premise of these superhero-esque assassins with special powers and allow yourself to go along with the main character, then you might actually enjoy the film. I know i'm surprised i did. And if the dvd has tons of extras, i might be convinced to buy it. Overall, 3 1/2 stars(rounded up to 4 on amazon) because the lead actor(not the action scenes, cgi, or camera-work) propels this film to rise above average mediocrity. And in this day and age, for me, that's a rarity.