Noisy, loud, shrill, full of unrealistic action... and little else.

Rating: 3/10 (14 June 2020)

This action film is one of those films that is difficult to judge. After seeing it, I felt that it has a lot of satire and criticism in the way it tells its story. The problem is that it has little story to tell and makes up for that failure with tons of action, a fast pace and a lot of money, as teenagers and younger audiences generally like.
The script tells us the story of Wesley Gibson. He is not happy and lives a mediocre existence where he is nothing more than a failed office worker, under the orders of an overweight and overbearing boss. He lives in a hideous apartment and has a beautiful girlfriend who ostensibly cheats on him with his best friend, who also works in the same office. The fact is that Wesley has little hope of improving his condition, so he ends up enduring mediocrity until he meets a beautiful woman who tells him that he is the son of a murderer who has just been killed. Although it is hard to believe, he decides he needs to know more about it and, realizing the reality, he throws his life in the trash and leaves with a bang. Now it's time for him to follow in his father's footsteps, become an almost infallible killer and avenge his death.
It is not the first time that cinema brings us the story of someone who, living in a mediocre and unhappy way, finds a way to "break the dishes", turn around and taking control of his life. About that, some people remembered "Matrix" and, in fact, that film does just that, although similarities with this film don't go beyond that. In spite of all the social criticism about our way of life and the people who settle for the sensuous everyday life, the script is rather weak in that it is unrealistic and the plot looks thinner than the cotton cloths in that lom factory. The story of the Destiny Loom, then, sounds stupid or childish. If the fraternity were librarians, would they kill based on the height of the spines of the books on the shelves? The strong point of the film are the high doses of action, sometimes very unrealistic, with incredible fights and breathtaking chase scenes, where everyone escapes unscathed by a hair.
Timur Bekmambetov ensured an average direction, giving us a coherent film that could have been much better in the hands of a more demanding and detailed director. James McAvoy is a good actor and has proven himself in previous films, but has little to do here but being beaten, run, get angry and look confused. The film never gave him a chance to show what he was worth. Angelina Jolie has one of the most important roles but what she does is, quite simply, copy much of what she did in "Tomb Raider", "Mr. And Mrs. Smith" and "Salt", in an uninteresting and lazy performance that adds nothing to her career but must have filled her bank account in some millions. Morgan Freeman didn't seem like anything special to me either, but he still stood out positively, given that most of the cast gave us bad acting or lazy versions of work previously done.
Technically, it is a very visual film, betting on a fast pace for the audience to get carried away and not to think too much about the plot. Cinematography is essential for this purpose, with short and fast scenes, constantly moving from one camera to another, from one point of view to another. The use of light and shadow seems appropriate to me. Sound effects are strident and, when combined with a very rock soundtrack, make the film a little loud and noisy. CGI and slow motion help in the action scenes but, from a moment on, everything seems so fanciful that we disconnect from it and wait to the end.