Cast: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Thomas Kretschmann

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Screenplay: Michael Brandt

Genre: Action/Thriller

Running time: 1 hr 48 mins



CRITIQUE:


You’ve got to realise the existence of summer movies signifies the defiance to the natural laws of physics, motion, gravity – or worse, the unwritten laws of cinematic storytelling or narrative logic. Summer movies are aplenty of entertainment and slam-bang pandemonium, and with regards to Michael Bay, as a terrific example, he sees more explosions rather than characterisation, gives more fun rather than stun. WANTED, heavily branded as a summer film, possesses the attributes – but fortunately dodges the bullets of kitsch entertainment and truly delivers the much-needed adrenaline pump of the heated movie atmosphere of the summer.


It’s big, bombastic and worthy of your hundred bloody-hells. This is an absurdist, escapist fiction of a highly-stylised world absent of any moral and social pathos, but rather dwells in the darker fringes of our humanity – set in a world where a group of assassins called The Fraternity are out to annihilate targets of prospective evils. Their creed: “Kill one, save a thousand”. What follows is a tale of a nobody named Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy crashes Hollywood superstars) who inadvertently discovers his origins, and was swung away from his world of nonsensical office drone to gun-slinging bravura. If one could notice, this is a post-modernist approach to superhero origin stories, and WANTED proudly does so. It derives from FIGHT CLUB (boring office life, cue in protagonist’s narration), THE MATRIX (eye-popping visual feast of slow-mo technology) and STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (father-son relationships) – but WANTED borrows from these stellar stories and makes it a wholly distinct universe, throwing in archaic elements and kinetic sequences that never lets you draw breath.


That’s where the lesser-known name of Timur Bekmambetov, the visionary behind the Russian breakout hits NIGHT WATCH and DAY WATCH, comes in. In his Hollywood debut film, this Kazakhstan-born director may be linked to BORAT in common national grounds but dares to quench his thirst for talent, it is quite obvious that a new actionmeister has arrived the tinseltown. There has never been a film since THE MATRIX that injects visual gregariousness, impeccable usage of slow-motion technology and genre freshness like WANTED does. While the former is groundbreaking for its originality, the latter is superb in its delivery of promise.


And there is a perfect casting effort working here. Angelina Jolie’s Fox (impeccably named, and appropriately so) may well be the finest, the most glorious cinematic assassin that ever existed. Her sex appeal is put to greater function and her felinity serves the character with grace, yet with such dangerous ferocity lurking beneath. Her stunt with a red sports car might cause endless man-fantasies, and by the time she locked lips with McAvoy, the blokes can’t help but groan “that lucky bastard!” Morgan Freeman as Sloan is a work of dignified pried, and his presence is a worthy one. But it’s James McAvoy’s transformation from a Scottish doctor to an English World War II soldier, and now a neglected nobody to a behemoth A-Lister. He perfectly pins down Wesley Gibson’s idiotic nature, foolish determination and steely character. And he could do action movies, that’s what matters.


If you try to leave an ounce of logic at the door and forget the laws of physics, open your mind and let it go along with the rush of speed. This fast-paced actioner will stun you, along with its bendy storyline, there are twists along the way you wouldn’t expect. If you start asking for the sinuous origins of the Looms of Fate, or The Fraternity’s omnipresent existence – then you are questioning the reality that this is a work of fantasy. Enjoy it and let it blow your mind.



VERDICT:

This may be 2008’s zaniest, zippiest, most cracking summer action movie. WANTED may be filled with bombast, plot holes and brow-raising moments – Bekmambetov’s jaw-dropping visuals, along with Jolie’s enthralling presence, McAvoy’s superlative zero-to-hero transformation, Freeman’s ominous authority – it is an arresting, hyperkinetic piece of entertainment.



RATING: A-