Far-fetched, tongue-in-cheek splatter fest

Rating: 7/10 (29 March 2020)

In a world where physics seem to be governed by suggestions rather than by laws, an ancient fraternal order of über-assassins, headed up by Sloan (Morgan Freeman), deals with a rogue element in its ranks. When told of the murder of his assassin-father, Wesley Gibson (James MacAvoy) joins the fraternity to be trained by, among others, Fox (an emaciated looking Angelina Jolie) so he can take revenge on the killer. The assassins, who supposedly are directed to their targets by fate (hence the clever 'loom of doom' metaphors) have superhuman strength, agility, healing, and marksmanship (including the uncanny, and very useful, ability to curve the flight path of a bullet). Oddly, these skills seem to be somehow genetic: without any training Wesley can shoot the wings of flies. The film is largely played for bloody, over-the-top laughs with lots of gruesome splatter-shots and a liberal helping of the F-word used as comic relief. The cast is fine for this type of rumpus but, other than the bending bullet shtick (likely considered too preposterous even for the likes of John Wick, Smith (from 'Shoot'em up') or Hit Girl), there's not much new on the screen, i.e. if you like this kind of movie, you've probably seen it all before. The plot is far-fetched beyond criticism but does suffer from the usual inexplicable incompetence of the otherwise super-competent when dealing with the hero as well as from the characters tendency to believe what they are told (when needed to do so by the plot) despite it being established that there are scams within cons within lies everywhere. Undeniably fast-moving and entertaining in stupid kind of a way. Musophilics (and animal lovers in general) should be aware that dreadful things happen to CGI rats.