Wanted? Wow. Wesley (James McAvoy) is a nobody who works in a cubicle and whose girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend. His life basically sucks, and nothing special is coming out of it. Then, one day, Fox (Angelina Jolie) shows up and tells him that his father was a great assassin and has recently been killed by a man named Cross (Thomas Kretchmann). So Fox takes him to The Fraternity, a sect of awesome assassins led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman). There, Wesley must train to become a great assassin like his father in order to get revenge and kill Cross. Let’s start off with the obvious: the action. The action was amazing, and it wasn’t all special effects and Matrix-like stunts. Some of it was just pure fist brawling. The blood was high and splattery, and the other action was intense. My adrenaline level almost never went down. And the big shootout climax reminded me a lot of the climax in Equilibrium in which Christian Bale makes his way through the government building in order to get to his final opponent. It was just plain awesome and fun. And some of the movie’s action was even so hard-hitting that it was cringe-worthy (most of those were in the training scenes/montage).
But one aspect in going into this movie I wasn’t expecting was the humor. This movie was really funny, specifically the voice-over narration from McAvoy. He pulled off the character very well. Whereas The Matrix’s Neo went from plausible badass to absolute badass, Wesley went from complete loser (and in no way badass) to absolute badass, which is a much cooler kind of transition (it isn’t that sort of She’s All That makeover in which the dorky girl is still very hot anyway). As a kind of side note, I thought a few times during this movie how McAvoy could make a really good Spider-Man/Peter Parker. But anyway...
Angelina Jolie was smokin hot in this movie. And the other visual stimuli were great, as well. The special effects were top notch, and while bullet time is no new thing anymore, it was used creatively and well for the moments it was there. The cinematography otherwise was also done nicely, making it appeasing to the eye and rather unique.
If there was anything of note that I thought could have been better, it would be reasonings behind transitional moments of character. For instance, Wesley is totally against The Fraternity, and after noticing a bump in his bank account, he suddenly gets a boost in self-confidence and decides to join in (though I loved the office scene that shows his new-found self-confidence. The end part with the… well… ‘Keyboard moment’… got applause in my audience). And then the next time he gets another boost of confidence just seemed a bit off to me. It just felt like there could have been more to some of those types of scenes. In other words, Wesley’s character development was slightly shaky a few times near the beginning. But I quickly just shrugged it off.
Otherwise, I’m not sure what else to say about the movie. It was super fun action, really funny, great to look at (in more ways than one), and although the ending was predictable (down to the final moments), it was still done rather well. I’d definitely see it again.
A Keanu 'Whoa'
(P.S. Somewhat ironic rating, huh? Oh, and hooray! For the first time, my P.E.S.T. ratings have both been spot-on).
