Movie Review

WANTED

Star Campus Desk

IF no one had told you that Wanted was based on a series of comic books, you probably could have guessed it. The film occupies a very familiar space between the sublimely silly and the oddly profound, using lots of visual razzle-dazzle to trick you into lowering your expectations and settling for little more than a fun ride.

Let's start with the opening titles, which tell us that the film is about a society of assassins that grew out of a secret "clan of weavers" about a thousand years ago. As we get to know these assassins, who call themselves The Fraternity, we discover that they serve a higher calling than mercenaries or super-spies; these assassins work for Fate, and they can decipher the will of Fate in the threads that come from their looms. The Fates apparently controlled the destinies of menand even the godsby spinning, measuring and cutting the threads of each person's life.

So, there are deeper themes at play here, and the movie, to its credit, is well aware of them, even if it handles them in the pulpiest manner possible. The story itselfcredited to Michael Brandt and Derek Hass, who collaborated on the morally ambiguous remake of 3:10 to Yuma, and to Chris Morgan, whose Cellular was one of the more enjoyable gimmicky little B-movies of the last few yearsconcerns an office drone named Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) who hates his life. His job stinks, his bank account is practically non-existent, and his girlfriend is sleeping with one of his co-workers, which is something he knows about but is too weak-willed to do anything about. Then, one day, he bumps into a gun-toting Fox (Angelina Jolie) at the supermarket, and everything changes.

Fox tells Wesley that the father he never knew was killed recently, and that the man who killed his father is right there in the supermarket and about to kill him. Then, of course, mayhem ensues, as Fox and Cross (Thomas Kretschmann), the man following Wesley, exchange a hail of bullets and send various grocery items spilling into the aisles. The thrill continues for the rest of the movie as Wesley trains under the Fraternity to hunt down the man who killed his father.

Source: www.urbancinefile.com