Wanted

Synopsis: Wesley (James McAvoy) is a sad loser stuck in a dead-end job. That is until Fox (Angelina Jolie) rescues him from an assassin who has just killed his father and wants him dead too. He’s drawn into The Fraternity, a secret society of assassins directed by fate to kill people to balance the scales of good and evil. And so he becomes a super-assassin and sets out to avenge his father’s death.

This is a really bad movie. Honestly. It’s really, really bad. For all their shortcomings, both of Bekmambetov’s previous two films, Night Watch (2005)  and Day Watch, (2006) have a lot more visual inventiveness and cohesive plotting than this mess.

Wanted cruises along your basic self-actualisation-through-violence, nihilistic fantasy storyline: woebegone loser who can’t cope with life discovers he’s a super-powered killer and takes control of his life by destroying things. Basically, if you’ve seen The Matrix or Fight Club (both 1999) you’ve seen this film, and you’ve seen it done way better. It’s a template that’s getting a bit old, and given that it’s not even done particularly well here, it’s simply no longer impressing. But it does say something that there are films like this still coming out. Clearly there’s a belief that there are plenty of people who need the opportunity to vicariously rage and rail against the unfairness of life. Otherwise, why make films that panders to the lust for power and dominance? And why does taking control of your life always seem to involve violence in this little sub-genre of cinema? Whilst Fight Club was a massive dig at the various masculinity movements that are floating around, clearly a lot of people failed to get the joke. Such is the sad reality of mass society.

I understand that the original comic book that the film is based on is about a group of super-villains who, upon discovering that the super-heroes are probably more corrupt than they are, end up with the task of balancing good and evil. That kind of screwed-up morality tale sounds a lot more fascinating than what has been served up with this missed opportunity.

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