Barnes at the Movies: Wanted

I went to see the movie Wanted just because I was a fan of the graphic novel. I knew like many movies that it was only loosely based off the source material, but I wanted to see the cinema spin on the story.

Wanted follows Wesley Gibson (The Last King of Scotland's James McAvoy), a twenty-something cubicle dweller that hates his job, his boss, and life in general. Wesley's emasculating girlfriend is also screwing his best friend and Wesley practically lives off his anti-anxiety medication. All that changes when he finds out that he is the son of a great assassin.

Wesley is recruited in the Fraternity, a league of noble assassins that have been in existence for over 1,000 years, through his father's colleagues, Fox (Angelina Jolie) and the head of the Fraternity, Sloan (Morgan Freeman). The Fraternity picks up Wesley and trains him in the deadly arts, including the supernatural-Matrix-esque bullet curving. The Fraternity wishes that Wesley take the mantle of his father and take out a rogue Fraternity agent that happens to be his father's killer. Meh.

The first 20 minutes of the movie followed the graphic novel pretty well then just made up the rest as it went along. Mind you, for the sake of the review, I'm not judging the movie based off of accuracy of the book, but it is still a meh-movie. There were some cool moments in the film, but the story's plot twist wasn't really twisty, the dialogue seemed hackneyed. The special effects weren't bad, but if you have seen The Matrix then it's nothing you haven't seen before nor something you haven't seen improved upon. It attempted to be an action film with a good story, but turned into a stock R-rated action film in which characters shoot guns and say "fuck" a lot.

Angelina Jolie was one of the main selling points of this movie, but she does very little acting and seems to be hired to just look sexy while holding a gun. That and a gratuitous shot of her bare ass. James McAvoy did a decent job as the Wesley Gibson character and was the highlight of the film. Morgan Freeman was phoning it in, but Freeman phoning it in is better than most actors doing their Oscar best.

In other words, this movie isn't the worst I've ever seen, but it didn't leave any lasting impression on me positive or negative. Not good, not terrible, just...meh. The film might be Wanted, but it's gotta look for someone else to fill that void.