Wanted is a ride Warning spoilers!

A one-word review of Wanted would be “Wow.” That’s one of a series of similar-sounding exclamations – along with “whoo,” “whoa” and “what the …” – you’ll find yourself muttering as this action-adventure thrill ride fills the screen with its pumped-up and postmodern snap, crackle and pop.

Perhaps the rarest response an action movie can evoke from viewers jaded and benumbed in this age of seen-it-all CGI overload is: “I’ve never seen that before.” Wanted achieves this most special of effects again and again and wastes no time in doing so. The opening sequence shows a supercool guy striding down a hallway and bursting into a high-rise office. Bullets start flying, windows start splintering; next thing you know, he’s launching himself from one building to another, arcing over the street, guns blazing as he takes down a team of rooftop snipers.

All the slow-motion, stop-action trickery going on here recalls another wow-inducing movie – The Matrix. That’s a connection only strengthened by the quasi-mystical, speculative-fiction noodlings of the story; it’s all so very Matrix-ian.

In this variation, James McAvoy’s Wesley is Neo, Morgan Freeman’s Sloan is Morpheus and Angelina Jolie’s Fox is Trinity. But don’t carry this connection too far; the makers of Wanted aren’t interested in making you think, they want to make you feel – dazzled, delighted, dumbfounded.

Russian director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Day Watch) proves himself to be a singularly creative and innovative filmmaker. In a movie full of smart, funny and (most of all) startling sights, there are two visual ideas here that you can’t believe haven’t been thought of before and are executed so seamlessly and seemingly naturally, it seems as if they really should work.

The first is the stunt showcased in the movie’s trailer in which a red sports car roars toward Mr. McAvoy, goes into a spin, the passenger door pops open at just the right moment, and he is scooped into the car, which then roars off without missing a beat.

The second is the notion of curving a bullet, firing a gun the way a big-league pitcher throws a ball. Again and again we see characters snap their arms in just such a way as they fire a gun, so that the bullets zip around and spin in a looping, inevitable arc toward their targets. Both are stunning, inventive ideas pulled off perfectly. Someone needs to create a Web site taking bets on how long – the day, the hour – before some group of young men trying to replicate one of these stunts runs over or shoots someone.

The story, such as it is, involves Wesley (Mr. McAvoy, practicing his best American accent) being the long-lost son of a prodigal assassin who has broken off from this ancient order of weavers turned killers. Brought into the fold, Wesley is put through a punishing regimen and tutored by the wise old Sloan, who talks about chaos and order and shows Wesley the giant “loom of fate,” which produces encoded stitches that tell the weavers who to whack next.

Is that all silly and preposterous? Of course, it is. But who cares. Wanted is fast and furious; not coincidentally, two of its three writers – Derek Haas and Chris Morgan – wrote two of the three The Fast and The Furious films.

Wanted is a movie so fresh and clever and unafraid – a quality summed up when Wesley cracks an insufferable jerk with his keyboard, sending a spray of keys (and teeth) that spell out a punch-line message – that you can’t help but say it, that one highest word of praise. Wow. Watch this is a must!

credits: Dallas Morning News

Official Movie Poster

Singapore Date: 26th June 2008 Language: English Running Time: 115 mins Rating: NC16 Genre: Crime / Drama / Action Tagline: Choose your destiny Starring: Morgan Freeman, James McAvoy, Kristen Hager, Angelina Jolie, Thomas Kretschmann Directed by: Timur Bekmambetov Company: Kickstart Productions Singapore Distributor: United International Pictures iZone Rating: 8.5/10 Official Website : Wanted

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