It has style, Angelina Jolie, and not much else

Rating: 6/10 (29 June 2008)

"Wanted" is that summer movie packaged solely for adrenaline-driven audiences. It's heavily stylish, it's violent and it stars Angelina Jolie. Too bad there's not much in the way of a good original story.
James McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson, an office guy who has to deal with dwindling financial resources, a terrible boss, and a friend who steals his girlfriend when he's not looking. But all those pale when a problem presents itself as an assassin who seems bent to kill him. That's when Wesley meets Fox (Jolie), a mysterious woman who saves him in a pharmacy shootout and through a mad-dash chase in busy streets. He eventually learns of the Fraternity, a group of super assassins of which Fox is a member, and of which his dad was also a member, and that whoever killed his dad is out to kill him as well. Thus begins a training led by the Fraternity leader (Morgan Freeman) for Wesley to get back at the guy who apparently murdered his father.
Based loosely on a comic book by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, "Wanted" is a no-holds barred violent article that benefits from director Timur Bekmambetov's highly stylized vision. Bekmambetov, director of the visually assaulting but emotionally distant "Night Watch" series, shifts to the fifth gear and rarely lets up although the director's combination of frenetic action and black humor is a case of hit-and-miss affair. But all sensory gratifications eventually wear down when the "Matrix"-esque narrative and the twist seemed to be ripped from the screenplay pages of "Star Wars" start to wear down.
McAvoy makes a perfect case of a loser for his character at the start of the film and finds a believable spot for his character's eventual transformation. Jolie is hot, and really, is there any other reason for audience to care? Freeman brings his charismatic authoritarian figure but his character becomes more ludicrous as the film progresses, which is punctuated by an amusing expression by the actor towards the end.
In the end, "Wanted" brings to the table everything you expect from a summer action movie. It's stylish but it doesn't have enough substance to back it up to keep it from being truly memorable. As my companion said, "It's not really a failure, but it doesn't really succeed either."