Hey wait a minute, what HAVE I done lately?

Rating: 9/10 (24 July 2008)

I wasn't excited to see Wanted. I'm back in America for the summer and I was going to the movies with a friend, and she has what can only be called an unhealthy obsession with Angelina Jolie, so of course this was at the top of the list of movies to see. Personally I don't understand a lot of the hype about her as an actor, but I have to admit she looks good with a gun so I decided to check out the movie.
In perusing some of the reviews on the IMDb, it seems that people either loved it or hated it. I liked it a lot, although you have to understand that it's what I call an over-the-top action movie, where everything is taken to the extreme (see "Shoot 'Em Up"). With movies like this the goal is spectacle, not realism. Hence all of these piddly complaints about the physics involved in bending bullets are rendered meaningless.
Why would you complain about realistic stunts when cars can flip through the air with precision and then accelerate off the side of a bus? Or when super-assassins can throw bullet curveballs? Is it not obvious what that this is not exactly cinema verite? I have to agree that some of the plot devices are a little witless (a magic loom that weaves fate? Come on...), but the action is outstanding to say the least. Angelina has clearly been working on her war face, every time she fired her gun and showed that grimace I could only imagine her in her cavernous mansion practicing for hours on end in front of a mirror, but especially in comparison to a lot of the garbage sent to theaters these days, the entertainment is high.
The movie is loud, fast, and explosive, but not exactly a cognitive workout. It's great as an hour and a half of action entertainment, and it's also fun to pick out the scenes that feed off of other films, the most obvious to me being Office Space, one of my favorite comedies.
I have only recently become aware of James McAvoy, after seeing The Last King of Scotland and Atonement (which, in a single shot, features, by McAvoy, one of the finest pieces of acting I've ever seen in a movie - see my Atonement review...), and while he doesn't exactly knock my socks off here with his performance, he's perfect for the role and pulls off a disillusioned blue-collar American perfectly. Add him to the list of British actors so talented that many moviegoers didn't even know he was British.
To a greater extent than McAvoy, obviously, the great Morgan Freeman is also clearly just having a good time here. The material is distantly below his talents, as it is for McAvoy, but at the same time, I see no reason why actors of his caliber shouldn't do a movie like this every once in a while. Shoot 'Em Up, as well, is also distantly below the talents of Clive Owen, but MAN he was good in it! Angelina Jolie, however, fits right in here, because this is the kind of movie that she is best in. I am thrilled, by the way, to have read that she has been ordered to gain weight for her next role, partly so she will be attractive again, and partly so she won't faint on set, like she did while making this movie.
At any rate, I won't say to ignore all of the bad press about the movie, because it's true that a lot of people won't like it, but it seems a perfect example of a movie that, if you go in with the right state of mind, it can be great fun. The cleverness of the highly choreographed stunts, for me, often outweighed my lack of belief. Enjoy!