Morgan and Angelina laugh all the way to the bank

Rating: 1/10 (11 July 2008)

'Wanted' begins with a shootout between two professional assassins in a high-rise office building. One off the assassins jumps to the rooftop of the other building where he murders all the people who are trying to kill him. However, when he jumps, he's able to fly across horizontally without falling to the ground. He's also able to control the bullets he fires from his gun making them bend around potential victims and then striking the targets he seeks. All this comic book nonsense wouldn't be so offensive except for the fact that the director enjoys reveling in the violence throughout the film. Bullets fly in slow motion and always seems to strike their victims in the center of the head with gobs of blood oozing all over the place.
Brian McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson, an office worker hooked on anti-anxiety medication. He's a wuss surrounded by his unlikeable boss, an obese woman who berates him all the time. His best friend humiliates him by having sex with his girlfriend in front of him on multiple occasions. Gibson is recruited by a 1000-year old secret society of assassins called "The Fraternity" led by Sloan (played by Morgan Freeman) who informs him that one of their renegade members, Cross, has murdered one of their best members, who just happens to be Gibson's father who he never knew. Apparently The Fraternity wants to train the hopeless Gibson because they feel being an assassin is in his blood. He goes through a very long-winded training period where various members of the group (including "Fox" played by Angelina Jolie) toughen him up by punching, stabbing and shooting him all over his body. Gibson must be subjected to numerous rounds of torture until he becomes 'egoless' and finally adopts the steel-like mindset of the professional assassin.
The Fraternity is not without its new age pretensions for every time they beat Gibson to a pulp during their training session, they then put him in a bath, place some kind of clay all over his body (including his face) and fill him with vodka. Miraculously the bath and the vodka do the trick and he's up and about to face another round of beatings until he's ready to go forth and battle Cross. Meanwhile, Sloan reveals to Gibson how members are given their assignments. They work in some sort of textile factory where a loom weaves a tapestry which produces messages with some kind of secret code discernible within the fabric. Sloan seems to be the only one who knows how to decipher the messages and hence doles out the assignments. Gibson along with Fox end up shooting some guy in an office building while they're running from one subway train to another on an elevated track.
Things get worse when Gibson finally is able to track down Cross and kills him but not before finding out that Cross was actually his Dad and the Fraternity had double-crossed him. In the laughable finale, Gibson drives a garbage truck full of rats armed with miniature time bombs and dumps them inside some European castle where the Fraternity are all ensconced. The rats explode and most of the assassins are killed. Sloan somehow escapes but Gibson dupes him (we never find out how) by planting a double in his old office cubicle.
Just about like every other death in this film, Sloan takes a bullet in the forehead. The last shot in the film is Gibson holding his machine gun, cursing all his opponents and basically bragging what a macho guy he is.
'Wanted' is basically trash for mindless 14-year-olds. The director is from Russia and famous for Vampire films. This would have been a much better film if he threw a few vampires into the mix. Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie merely show up to cash their paychecks. Not only does 'Wanted' promote violence, it revels in it. In the perverted moral universe of 'Wanted', a winner is defined as the last thug left standing. Hopefully you won't pay $12 to see this trash. When it comes to cable, just flick your remote to the next channel.