OK if you like this kind of film.

Rating: 3/10 (10 July 2009)

So this is a movie about an cult that claims ancient origins and divine purpose. Nothing out of the ordinary there, all cults claim ancient origins and divine purpose and with the same amount of evidence, id est none whatsoever. This particular cult also kills people and bends space and time with their mind, which is slightly less common.
Naturally there is a renegade from this cult, who serves as the antagonist, and a clueless newbie: Wesley Gibson, who serves as the protagonist. I definitely wouldn't call him a hero, the only provably heroic thing he does is kill a guy who kills people for profit. Gibson also kills a bunch of innocent people and bystanders, so definitely not a hero.
Speaking of Gibson, I keep wondering if I'm supposed to relate to him in some way; like him or identify with him? I never do, but I usually hate protagonists these days so maybe I'm out of touch.
The cultists randomly select people to kill, by picking names out of a hat. Well, not really, they have a big random number generator set up, clouded in mysticism and holy. But it's apparent that they could just as easily have chosen names at random out of the phone book.
The renegade left the cult because one day one of the cultists thought: "Hey, why not chose our targets to make the world a better place? (While pocketing some cash for ourselves.)" . Gibson wavers a bit between the camps, but that is fortunately the closest we get to soul searching.
Despite the mumbo jumbo death list generator, there isn't enough mysticism in this movie. Just having the assassins carve runes into the bullets to make them curve and some mystic read the psycic aura of the spent bullets to track the enemy would have made those aspects easier to swallow. Even a lame "Use the force, William!" is more than we got.
On the other hand, sometimes the lack of explanations is a good thing. For instance, had Gibson's wavering between the two camps of the cult been made any clearer, he would have been forced to make an explicit choice and it would have been a stupid one. Too much explanation and we get idiocy like: "the robots are using humans as batteries".
Ignoring all story, there are some nice action scenes. Even in the obligatory knife fight Gibson isn't dumb enough to drop his guns, which is uncommonly sensible. There is also a brief glimpse of Angelina Jolie's backside.
Bottom line if you want action similar to "Matrix" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and are quick enough to make up your own story, so you can ignore the mess that comes with the film, "Wanted" can serve as a diversion for an hour and a half.