WANTED (Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy) Movie Review


Wanted is a Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Ben-Hur) directed film, starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terence Stamp, Common, and a bunch more.

The pitch line is,

"A frustrated office worker learns that he is the son of a professional assassin and that he shares his father's superhuman killing abilities."

The film starts out watching an assassin running for his life and eventually, getting caught the only way an assassin gets caught, by a bullet shot from an unfathomable distance away.

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Wesley (McAvoy) living his miserable little, boring broke life. It's so bad that even his best friend is boning his girlfriend, and he stays friends with the guy (played by Chris Pratt). That's how much of a loser Wesley is.

Then one night a man shows up and tries to kill him in a convenience store but a sexy, dangerous woman named Fox (Jolie) shows up to save his life.

She's amazing in how she handles the other gunman, but he gets away as does she from him, all while scooping up Wesley (literally) and taking him to her secret assassin headquarters run by Sloan (Freeman).

While there, they let Wesley know his father was an assassin and that he has some of the same qualities and skill sets that his father has. In fact their organization needs to train Wesley to deal with the man who tried to kill him. It seems that with his potential skill set, only he can kill this man.

And thus, his brutal training begins, as a means to an end for this secret organization to survive their deadliest enemy.

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This film, from the get go, is a pretty fun action flick. Even showing us how miserable Wesley is, is pretty entertaining. in fact watching McAvoy transform from the listless loser to a physical specimen of finely honed skilled killer is a subtle but pure pleasure.

Morgan Freeman lends his patriarch mode of acting to his role of the leader of the assassin group, a group whose mission it is to eliminate threats to the structure of a sane and safe society.

There are various other characters with specialties - gunsmith (Common), repairman, a knife expert/butcher, explosives, healing and various other experts, all who take part in the training of Wesley.

But the real eye-catcher was Angelina Jolie, in what could be considered possibly one of her sexier roles I can think of. She had a slinky presence that exuded a screen sexiness, even while under fire.

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During the telling of this tale, there are a few things that test your ability to stretch your imagination, but if you work with it and just sit back and enjoy the story, it's a fun flick.

The story is a fun run and it has some great little moments and twists that can take you by surprise, making it an even more fun film to enjoy.

The film got a 6.7/10 on IMDb and to be honest, I can't disagree, giving it a popcorn 7 rating. If it comes on TV in whatever fashion, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

That's that.


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