Thursday, December 4, 2008

Wanted (2008) Film Review - James McAvoy

Plot Summary - Extremely violent action-thriller starring James McAvoy as Wesley Gibson, an ordinary, mild-mannered account manager who hates his boring job, his bitchy boss, and is not too thrilled with his home life either, what with his rundown apartment next to the El tracks and live-in girlfriend who's shagging his best "friend". But the dad he's never met turns out to be a famed member of a "fraternity of assassins", just killed by a member who has defected. Wesley is pulled into this group of assassins, trained to be a super-power killer, and set to kill the man who killed his dad. But first he has to murder other targets, strangers "fate" has marked for death. He's usually accompanied by girl power assassin "Fox" (Angelina Jolie), and of course, lots and lots of guns all over the place.

Review - I saw this film only to see heartthrob James McAvoy - I certainly wasn't expecting such an amount of violence as contained in this film. I can accept violence in a film that is very good, especially when it fits into the plotline, but this struck me as a film with minimal story to account for all sorts of slow-motion bullets going through victims heads and tons of splattering blood all over the place - I feel sort of sick and that's not how I like to feel after seeing a movie! The visual effects and computer animation made parts of this film seem like a video game rather than the real world - I guess that helped me watch, in a way, because some of the violence actually looked pretty darn fake. I love James McAvoy and he's a doll here, but this is his worst film by a large margin. Please oh please James M. - make your next film a lovely period Dickens or Jane Austen, something like that. Rating - 4 to 5/10 stars

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