Can't say it didn't take me out of my humdrum existence for 2 hrs

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2008)

This is not a slapped together movie. It's carefully laid out and quite effective. Some of the scenes are spectacular and convincing, others a little less so, but, in general, it's easily worth the price of admission. James McAvoy doesn't seem the type to be dodging bullets but by the end of the movie, you're convinced. There's a little gratuitous sex in places, hardly the theme of the movie, but it spoils it for the younger crowd for no good reason, really. The detailed violence is not so gratuitous. But I liked the integrity of the movie, particularly in the training sequences. There's a nice sense of hard standards displayed that you don't often see anymore. Ms Jolie is not quite the show stopper she's been before, but she's still an enormously interesting woman who seems to have a taste for wickedness and vengeance, and who you don't want to take your eyes off of. Really, who else could you ask to do her part? Morgan Freeman always adds a little something real as does Terrence Stamp and both execute rather effortlessly. All in all entertaining but almost entirely on the male side of the spectrum.