'Come with me if you want to live'

Rating: 5/10 (26 June 2008)

Hopelessly derivative generic action flick based on a comic book. It's either that or a computer game these days.
It's about pod worker Wesley Gibson, played by James McAvoy of Atonement and Last King of Scotland fame this time putting on an American accent. He hates his job, his life, his co-workers etc, then out of the blue this lush assassin (Angelina Jolie) is hauling him off into a different destiny. So far, so The Matrix, but then there's the 'Come with me if you want to live' action scene where they're being chased by a nasty assassin and she's protecting him. It also reminded me of Weird Science, as the nerd is mooning over her, too.
It's all a bit like Hit-man, the difference being the story arc. In Hit-man, the assassin is a cool deadly type who learns real feelings thanks to a girl he picks up, in Wanted it's a loser who learns to be a cool deadly type thanks to being picked up by a girl, it's reversed. I do prefer Wanted because the two leads are more charismatic and it has two outstanding action scenes.
That said, while I like McAvoy as an actor on principle, I'm not sure he can really carry a film like this. I didn't care for his US accent, so far it's all a bit like Ewan McGregor when he tried to break into the States. He lacks the air of mystery or paradox. Really they may as well have cast an American actor. Jolie is terrific, I must admit she's a real celluloid turn on and you don't get many of those these days.
Although it picks up towards the end, this is a real dumb flick . I think it needed a European director to tap into its moral ambiguity. I mean, someone tells you to be an assassin and you just go with it? Also, this nerd is meant to be trained up but it seems to take place within a few weeks rather than a year... It has lots of visual tricks to distract from the fact that most of it is nicked from other films.