Starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Common, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann
Written By: Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, Chris Morgan
Directed By: Timur Bekmambetov
Studio: Universal Home Studios
Buy on Amazon.com link

It’s time to leave your brains at the door and enjoy an action-packed movie that stars James Mr Tumnus McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. Wanted is based on a comic book, so you should expect cartoony violence and a ridiculous storyline.

Wanted tells the story of a loser office worker Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) who gets pushed around. His boss is a fat, loudmouth wench; his girlfriend is a whore and cheats on him with Wes’ best friend. He has no meaning in life and doesn’t care about anything. He eventually finds out that his Dad that walked out on him was a super assassin and one of the best. One night while at the pharmacy, a sexy assassin named Fox rescues Wesley from the rogue assassin that killed his Father. She introduces him to the Fraternity, a secret assassin organization led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman). They decide to train him to become a killer like his Father and go after the man responsible for the Father he never knew.

I went into this movie with an open mind, but came out disappointed. I heard Wanted was a fun action movie; but in the end, I just thought it was just plain silly. I’m not sure if this movie was taking itself seriously or not, but a lot of the stuff in the movie was just ridiculous. I knew from the opening of the movie that I was going to be rolling my eyes the entire time. The difference between this movie and a movie like Shoot Em Up, is that Shoot Em Up knew it was full of shit. The filmmakers made things so corny that you couldn’t help but laugh and love the movie. Wanted seems like it was just an effect driven action movie but without any good actions scenes. Seeing Wes getting his ass kicked the entire movie doesn’t really count for action. I thought the signature curved bullet tricks were cool but other than that, Wanted borrowed way too much from the Matrix, Equilibrium and other movies.

I felt James McAvoy was the wrong choice to lead this movie. The guy that played Mr Tumnus in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe just doesn’t scream action star to me. I can see casting Jolie since she’s sexy and has done action movies before; but I felt McAvoy wasn’t the right choice. Plus I thought he was so whiny and annoying for most of the movie. Maybe that’s what he was going for? He did a good job with the voice-overs and when he was working in the office. Some of that stuff was funny, but overall they could have picked someone better to play Wesley Gibson. I like McAvoy in other movies but this one I thought he was far too irritating.

The Wanted extras are presented on disc 2 and there are a few featurettes that are quite good. There’s a featurette on the characters of the movie, and then there’s quick featurettes on special effects, and stunts in the movie. Each featurette has interviews and lots of behind the scenes. It’s pretty straight forward stuff. The special effects featurette focuses on the train sequence at the end. I’m not sure why they really focused on that one because the scene wasn’t that spectacular. The graphics were really noticeable and looked fake. I’m not entirely sure why there needed another disc of just extras. It didn’t seem like there was much on the DVD features. I think the Blu-Ray has more extras, if you really cared about the movie.

Wanted will keep you entertain if you remove your brain for 110 minutes and just try to make sense of what’s happening on the screen. I felt the movie was really silly and wasn’t that great. I went in hoping it would be a fun, guilty pleasure action movie but the film didn’t succeed in that. The film has loads of problems but if you can get past all that, then Ind say rent this on DVD or Blu-Ray before buying.

Features:
– Extended Scene
– Special Effects: The Art Of The Impossible
– Cast And Characters
– Stunts On The L Train
– Wanted: Motion Comics
– And Much More! – Digital Copy Of The Film

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
SPANISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
FRENCH: Dolby Digital 5.1

Video:
Widescreen 2.35:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
English, Spanish, French

Favorite Scenes: Angelina Joliens Ass scene
Rating: R
Running Time: 110 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: