Wanted, 2008 - Review

Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Starring: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman
Running Time: 110 minutes

Score: 9/10
Another great review from Steven.

A flawed, but beautifully orchestrated assault on the senses. A fantastic summer action flick, and nothing less of what I'd expect from Timur.

Wanted, based off of a graphic novel along the lines of Sin City and V for Vendetta, is the tale of Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), and his introduction to the mythical, secretive and ancient assassins' guild, The Fraternity. Wesley is hilariously introduced as a nobody, with an out of body, auto-narrator guiding the story, somewhat akin to the show Scrubs. From there the film picks up running and doesn't let up until the final bullet finds its resting place.

Wanted is directed by the masterful Timur Bekmambetov, the Kazakh filmmaker behind the Neo-Vampire Russian language films Night Watch, and Day Watch. People will at once compare this to Fight Club and The Matrix films. However Wanted is much more akin to Bekmambetov's previous work that expands and borrows from the aforementioned films. Think of Wanted not as a blatant rip-off of these films, but an evolution. Bullets curve, wax heals all wounds, and the ultimate weapon is a vat of peanut butter mixed with gasoline. Wanted uses every trick in the action film checklist, and turns these elements up to 11. Sex Appeal, check, Car Chases, check, Extremely High body count, check, Double Crosses, check, gallons of blood, check, an unlikely "hero", check.

Wanted is ripe with all of these and more, the story is nothing what it seems, and you simply need to wait till the end to the satisfying conclusion which contains, an infamous line, to see how it all goes down. It's a bloody, adrenaline pumping, sickly funny, and blood curdling romp down a lane less treaded in cinema today, and frankly its the most fun I've had at the cinema since Hot Fuzz last year.

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