When I first saw the trailers for Wanted, I wasn’t excited to see CGI bullets spinning in slow motion, but the cast alone is worthy of checking out the film. In addition, the film is under the direction of Timur Bekmambetov, best known for the Nightwatch horror-action film series out of Russia. It’s alright if you haven’t seen his past work before, but even if you have, a good chunk of Wanted screams stylist to and fro; it’s one of those films where nothing really makes sense, and maybe it isn’t supposed to. It’s also a film that is too big, and overpraised for its britches.

It’s a shame too, because the film, based on a graphic novel by Miles Millar, does have some appeal. Occasional dark humor and borderline satire, the acting isn’t horrible, and there’s a nice action scene involving a train. If James McAvoy as Wesley Gibson is a surprise in casting, he does fairly well in an unexpected role. Morgan Freeman as Sloan, head of ‘The Fraternity’ is also a joy to watch. Konstantin Khabensky, who appeared in Nightwatch has a nice turn as ‘The Exterminator’ and you like the guy even if you feel sorry for the rodents he uses in his explosive experiments. But now I come to Angelina Jolie, who has done a butt-kicker role like Fox a number of times in the past that it’s easy to buy her in the part. The acting isn’t bad-it’s just it isn’t a stretch. We get the wink-wink as she steps out of a bath, we get action scenes that seem to excite the character.

And for me, that’s where the praise ends. See, it kind of goes like this: a long time ago, a society of assassins called the Fraternity was formed to kill off potential threats to the general public, before they become threats to the public. The targets do supposedly do something later in life that “could” result in hundreds of deaths and/or mass destruction. The Fraternity finds out the names who they have to kill through a code that is, by chance, weaved into fabric. Think of it like a ‘Minority Report’ with strings attached. “Kill one, save a thousand” is the motto, and during the course of the film, I wondered if it really meant anything at all, since that rule, and the concept of The Fraternity was broken by the third act. There’s a question of killing people before they commit evil, but I had a bigger question: if they got the name “John Smith” they would have a major problem.

The plot holes in the story are big enough for a Semi truck to fall into. Take for example the the idea that a character won’t kill another character because of the relationship to that character. Why shoot at that character and put that character’s life in harm’s way, then? There’s another situation where it is stated that those in The Fraternity have special gifts that they were born with, like a extra sensory perception. But they say nothing about the laws of physics, which nearly every character breaks, and they say nothing about how objects and people can be in the *exact* right place at the *exact* right time.

A bigger problem, however, goes to the director and his filmmaking style. Badly done CGI bullets spinning around, exploding into each other have zero business being in a big budget picture with big names. If such things were improved with TLC, it might be a different ball game. But not when hordes of lower budget DTV action films pull the same trick and they look exactly the same. Also in DTV flicks are speeded up frames, and to see it on the big screen is an odd thing as well. But then there’s the “Matrix” like scenes in which scenes are in slow motion/bullet time and characters can do a hundred and one multi-tasks within mere seconds.

And this picture gets a lot of praise by many for not being as good as it should have been. That I can’t explain, unless there are some people who are satisfied with mediocrity.

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Wanted

Starring: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Thomas Kretschmann, Konstantin Khabensky and Terence Stamp
Directed By: Timur Bekmambetov

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