‘Wanted’, directed by Timur Bekmametov, is the latest imitation of ‘The Matrix’. You’d think that, after slating the last Matrix imitation I saw, ‘Jumper’, I’d have stayed well away from Wanted. But, since everything about the movie looked excellent in the trailer, I figured the risk was worth it.

Wanted is the basic “ordinary guy discovers extraordinary abilities” story. Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is a regular office worker and self proclaimed loser. All that changes when he is approached by Fox (Angelina Jolie), and is offered to join “The Fraternity”, a group of skilled assassins led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman), and leave his normal life behind. Sounds familiar, right? Wanted doesn’t do really anything original, apart from the excellent ‘bending bullets’ idea, and as a result overcompensates constantly, which became increasingly annoying as the film progressed.

The main character Wesley didn’t feel quite developed enough. Perhaps the director (I’m not writing out that name again, it’s a bloody nightmare to spell) felt that, since we’re all so familiar with this kind of character, he didn’t need to be developed quite as much, but even then the concept of “I‘m going to completely change every aspect of my character now that I have checked my bank balance“ is far too cheap. We never end up sympathising with Wesley before his arrogant descent into Twatville, which makes him impossible to like or relate to for the rest of the film.

The performance from the whole cast is solid throughout, which is the least you’d expect considering how brilliant the cast is. While at times it seemed as they were trying too hard, I felt was more to do with the cheesy dialogue than the individual performances. I also feel that there were a few misjudgements in the casting, particularly with Morgan Freeman‘s character, and I can’t help but think that Samuel L Jackson would have been much better for the role. Probably because Morgan Freeman saying “Mother fucker” is possibly the most unconvincing and unintentionally hilarious quote in any film he’s ever been in.

Another thing that annoyed me about the film was the was it constantly kept addressing the audience. Normally I don’t really mind this, but the way Wanted addresses you is like it’s giving you the middle finger while slapping your mum around the face. A great example of this is the last line in the film, when Wesley looks straight into the camera and asks “What the fuck you have done recently?”.  It’s like if I rounded off this review by telling you to “piss off, loser”.

Still, with all that said, I still liked Wanted, albeit on a very shallow level. The stunts were excellent, as were the bullet time scenes, and I’m definitely not going to complain about the naked Angelina Jolie. If you like action movies then I can almost guarantee you’ll enjoy this film, as long as you don’t go in expecting too much.

3/5

See the trailer here