Wanted

Ah, summer movies. Don't you just love them? No, actually I hate them. I despise the summer movie season and have barely mustered enough enthusiasm to get to the cinema more than once a month since April (summer starts early in cinema-land.) But being the UK's most loved cinema critic*, every now and again I feel I ought to get my arse into a movie theatre and watch some brainless popcorn fare, so yesterday I did.

Actually, if I'm honest I was quite looking forward to Wanted ever since I saw the trailer with Angelina Jolie dressed only in an impressive array of tattoos emerging from some sort of bath, dripping wet and looking positively stunning. And when it comes to brainless action flicks, they quite often prove to be far more satisfying than those worthy, earnest pictures that are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. There's no air of pretension here - director Timbor Bekmambetov has simply set out to film some jaw dropping action set pieces and keep the high octane plot moving so quickly you don't get chance to dwell on its ridiculousness. And if we judge a film by what it sets out to try and be rather than judging it against a standard it never aspired to, you have to give this one a pretty solid thumbs up.

Bekmambetov made his name (and what a name it is) directing Night Watch and Day Watch, 2 breathless, adrenaline filled action films that were huge in Russia, and which played pretty well overseas too. I managed 20 minutes of the incomprehensible first before bailing, however will concede that the director had a certain flair for action sequences. That flair hasn't escaped him in his first Hollywood film - in fact some of the action sequences in Wanted are as good as you'll see. There's a couple of especially brilliant scenes worthy of mention. In the first, Angelina Jolie flips her car over a police road-block, onto the side of a knocked over bus, and then drives off. In the second a train spectacularly derails off a bridge spanning two mountains either side of a huge gorge. A film can't get by on amazing CGI-enhanced action alone though (see Transformers for proof, in fact save your money and don't bother). You need some semblance of decent acting, or a decent script: preferably both. I think here they had the former rather than the latter. McAvoy is effective enough in his big Hollywood break. Jolie looks great. Freeman plays the same role that he always plays in these films. They are all effective though.

The plot however is complete crap. For the record, James McAvoy plays a complete nobody who just happens to be the son of one of the world's greatest assassins. Someone who can harness his almost superhuman power into ridding the world of bad guys as instructed by the (and I'm not making it up) the "loom of fate", which is so ludicrous it doesn't deserve further explanation. McAvoy gets drafted into to a group of assassins to replace his slain father, and embarks on a mission to avenge his death by killing the rogue assassin who killed him. Aside from the loom of fate, we have the problem of a final act involving thousands of explosive rats: surely the dumbest conceit in recent movie history.

Despite this failing, I am going to give the film a pass. Summer films are usually braindead crap and this may well be braindead and it may well be crap, but it has enough quality about it to get a half-recommendation from me. Everyone involved seems to be intent on simply making a fun, watchable action film and they pitch it just right. Wanted is very good at being what it wants to be and for my money that's far more enjoyable than seeing a film that aspires to greatness, but which comes up woefully short.

C+

*as voted by the editor of myfilmvault.com