Misses the target

Rating: 4/10 (13 May 2009)

The title says it all. James McAvoy plays a meek office scrub named Wesley Gibson who finds about his fantastic supernatural heritage as his world slowly falls apart around him thanks to his dead end job, cheating girlfriend, horrid boss and sleazy best friend. His discovery of this heritage leads to instantaneous wealth with the transfer of his father's assets. Wesley's father, who seemingly died in a fantastic shootout at the movie's beginning, was an assassin and member of The Fraternity, a group of killers who execute their targets according to a list printed on textile by the Loom of Fate. The Fraternity assassins have the ability to curve a bullet's trajectory after it has been fired, accurately fire a shot from thousands of yards aways, and perform a number of superhuman acts of agility and car stunts thanks to CGI and wire work. Angelina Jolie's Fox and Morgan Freeman's Sloan tutor Wesley in his abilities through torture and experimentation.
The first half of this film was highly entertaining but falls apart when Wesley learns the truth about his dad and takes revenge on the Fraternity. I'm not a person who has a problem with violent films but it has serve a purpose other just giving a movie a high body count. The ending gunfight between Wesley and the Fraternity almost made me sick. James McAvoy is a solid actor and plays Wesley through his transformation from office wimp to superhuman killing machine very well. Angelie Jolie doesn't bring anything to this film since she looks looks as brittle as a toothpick and not charismatic enough to be a femme fatale. Morgan Freeman is very good the part evangelist and part con man Sloan but that's not a surprise since he could read the obituary page and still sound cool. Overall a very unsatisfying film.