Slick and flashy but without a lot of substance to make it memorable

Rating: 4/10 (11 July 2008)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) has a boring job working behind a desk, without the guts to stand up to his bullying boss or do anything about the fact his best friend is shagging his girlfriend. But that all changes one night in a convenience store when a lady named Fox (Angelina Jolie) saves him from being killed by the guy who killed his father. He learns his father was part of an organization called The Fraternity who've been around for many years killing those selected from a weaving machine whose existence poses a threat to others. The head of the organization, Sloan (Morgan Freeman) has him trained to be like his dad and he progresses well, until an apparent assassination attempt on him draws him to a man named Pekwarsky (Terrence Stamp) who casts a different light on things.
Wanted is adapted from a 'graphic novel', as is becoming quite the craze at the moment, and seems to rely more on the flashiness and style of this than anything deeper. A grown up comic book of a movie, with gratuitous sex, violence and swearing by the bucketload, this truly feels like a big case of style over substance, with a messy, convoluted, possibly over-ambitious plot (that, as others have noted, does bear similarities with The Matrix), with thin characterization and a deadly lack of substance. I've not heard of director Timur Bekmambetov before, but I bet he had some sort of past as a music video director or something along those lines, because that's the impression his film gives off.
Cast wise, a wide range of famous name actors, from Jolie to Freeman, fail to make anything out of such uninspiring and flat characters and when talents like this can't save anything, you know you're in trouble.
It's not awful. It's sharp and well written in parts, with some funny lines and some cool stunts, including killing a mafia guy while in a car flying over him and a nice bit involving a train going off the rails toward the end. But it all seems to drag rather than keep you hooked. Never mind what I've said though, enough people liked it that a sequel's apparently already being made, but from me it's certainly most un-Wanted. **