Wanted

This species called James McAvoy comes across as a hybrid of Keanu Reeves and Toby Macguire. In fact the whole movie is a big jumble of Matrix, Da vinci code, X- men, Terminator etc. Wesley Gibson is an inconsequential Accounts manager who suffers from a huge complex. He has no life, no money, his girlfriend cheats on him by sleeping with his best friend, his obese boss breathes down on him constantly and he suffers from severe stress. His life slowly ebbs away day after day into the same hollow.

But suddenly, one fine morning he finds himself being rescued by the sexy Angelina Jolie (Fox) in a drug store from a man who is trying to kill him. What follows is a series of pistol packed action and car chases that would have the director of Ronan smugly saying "Yeah, been there done that!". Wesley gets rescued from a totally dull life into a thoroughly deadly one. He is introduced to an ancient brotherhood called the Fraternity who were weavers by profession but a secret society of assassins in reality. The 'Loom of Fate' apparently determined who would live and who deserved to die and these assassins were picked to do the gruesome job. At this point of the movie, you would wish you had left your morals and ethics on a shelf outside the theatre because it is rebelling to tear the screen apart and slap Timus Beckmambetov for dishing out such nonsense. Morgan Freeman (Sloan) welcomes Wesley into the fraternity much like Morpheus welcomed Neo.

Neo...err...sorry Wesley goes through some tortured training and awakens the dormant powers in him. He acquires lightening quick reflexes and agility and prepares himself to avenge the death of his estranged father and save the fraternity. But, slowly Wesley realises there is something dangerous and wrong with this society. While he is being pushed to kill a man who murdered his father, he eventually unravels a nasty truth about these moral slackers. So who does Wesley finally avenge? To reach the end, you would have to sit through some time tested, old copies of bloody action lifted off several of the afore mentioned movies.

One is not to forget the original and main effect and concept of this movie though. These assassins can BEND bullets. Yes, thats correct. One can shoot from any corner of the planet and the bullets would pass through doughnut holes, pierce people's soda cans, wind around train compartments, meander past buildings, breeze through offices on it's last leg of the journey before finally hitting its target. Another interesting point to note is Angelina's large appetite in this movie. Err...excuse me, wasn't that supposed to be Brad Pitt's selling point, eating all the time? Morgan Freeman is his silent, dignified, strong self in this movie, Angelina needs to seriously get out of the Lara Croft, Amazon warrior kind of roles and needs to don on a fresh look for a change. It is getting quite poutful!

Even if you can get by on some adrenalin pumped action, the moral deficiency in the movie gets very obvious and uncomfortable. Remeber the axiom in Spiderman "With great power comes great responsibilities"? Well, this movie trashes the second part of that axiom. You are left wondering why someone coudn't have 'fabricated' a better story! I would rate this movie with 2 stars.