Movie Review: "Wanted"

The movie "Wanted", directed by a Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, was the typical violent shooting movie like many others. He was successful in his directing of 2 russian films, Day watch and Night watch but "Wanted" was the first American film he got to direct. He uses many of the techniques in those movies throughout "Wanted" such as the scene where Wesley hits his former best friend with a keyboard and the letters and his teeth spells out something. This movie is based on the comic book written by Mark Millar. It was a very entertaining and intense movie with a lot of great action scenes but the film draws a lot of ideas and effects as "The Matrix". Both movies begin with loser characters who go everyday with a crappy job and live a nobody's life until someone comes and pulls them into a whole new life, as well as the use of the slow motion special effect in some of the shooting scenes. Ultimately, it was a pretty good movie held up by the intense shooting scenes as well as a very well put together chase scene towards the beginning. The best role played was by Angelina Jolie (from Mr. & Mrs. Smith) as she was an assassin in the "Fraternity" named Fox. She taught the main character Wesley, played by James McAvoy (also in the "Chronicles of Narnia"), the ways of the assassin and they were teamed up throughout the movie. Her job was to train him to become an assasin and she gets help from the other actors that are introduced. The Butcher teaches him how to use knives, Fox teaches him the bending bullets method, and the final was a character who's purpose was to teach Wesley how to get beat up by tying him up and beating the hell out of him. This whole organization is lead by the Fraternity's leader Sloan, played by Morgan Freeman (In a number of other films including "Bruce Almighty" and "The Dark Night"). He plays the part very well, with his role of a good guy who still has a kind of mystery to him. The highlight, in my opinion, is the final battle scene after the twist in the end changes the entire story. Overall the movie had good fight scenes and Anjelena added the sex appeal but it followed too closely to other movies and didn't have very much of a defining characteristic. Other than this the film was put together well and gets a 4 out of 5.

Reviewed by Adam