Wanted: Storytellers

Strong on visual effects, weak on story.

Wanted is an almost-two-hour movie about a loserly guy who finds out one day that he, apparently, hails from a long line of uber-cool (and cold-blooded) assassins. He is taken under the wing of his recently-assassinated, previously-unknown father's friends, and is then tasked with avenging his father's untimely death and the betrayal made upon The Fraternity. As he is geared up for the final battle, he is shown the inner workings of the secret group formed by Weavers, and discovers how this group acts as agents of Fate. In the end, he comes face-to-face with the assassin; whose dying breath causes the life that he has finally learned to embrace to, once again, unravel like torn silk before his very eyes.

In the world of myths, this is an ugly duckling story made cool, contemporary and testosterone-loaded with lots of guns, bruised-and-bloodied faces, guns, and more guns. (The highest point the protagonist (James McAvoy) needs to reach, after all, is to be able to curve a bullet around an obstacle to hit the target spot-on.)

While the movie started off with a visual feast and adrenaline-pumping stunts, it failed to maintain that amount of excitement and energy to the very end.

It *is* remniscient of The Matrix and Fight Club; but more of the former than the latter, since this was less mindfuck, more visual grandiosity.

Not that this one's effects would give The Matrix a run for its multi-million money, but it did a good job in making James McAvoy look cool in a shooting spree, and Angelina Jolie become the Goddess of All-That-is-Cool-and-Spiffy in her crazy-hot-chick-driving-the-speeding-red-car moment. (Then again, saying that 'Angelina Jolie is cool' is a redundancy.)

The movie started to become dragging towards the middle, making it the epitome of anti-climactic. Think racecar zooming off at incredulously high-speed only to end up crawling to the finish line with a coughing engine.

Unfortunately, at the same point where the movie is supposed to be shining its brightest did it begin its downward spiral to obscurity.

The ridiculously befuddled ending makes you think that the filmmakers expended all their creative energy to keep their viewers' attention during the first 15 minutes of the film, and then either got too confident that they've manage to fully entrance the audience or ran out of enough mojo to keep the action coming.

I wish they spent more time on establishing characters and forming an actual plot than in stitching together montages of training, assassinations and the like.

The actors were so-so in this. Don't expect any Oscar nominations headed your way, kiddies. James McAvoy either looked stressed or full of teenage angst. Angelina Jolie was of her usual stoicism, peppered with coyness and some cream-puffish-mushy personality. Morgan Freeman was, well, Morgan Freeman.

The only utterly brilliant aspect in all this that I cannot find fault in was the editing. With the story freely moving from the present to the past in pseudo-montages, it didn't become a confusing jumble of images and events. Instead, it provided the audience with a sort of stream-of-consciousness viewing experience wherein the audience was seeing/experiencing/re-experiencing whatever it is that is running through his head during these moments.

In conclusion, I would recommend this movie to people into mouth-agaping stunts and effects and/or Angelina Jolie. But if you want to be over-the-top wowed-out, then this movie is not for you.