Who is the Audience for This Movie?

Fans of movies with a lot of gun play.

What I Liked About This Movie

Wanted starts with a voice over that is playfully voiced by the main character. I found it quite funny and was slightly let down when the voice over moments changed to a more serious tone. As is shown in all the promotional materials for Wanted Angelina Jolie really brings the sex appeal aspect to the movie. At one point she totally kicks the main characters ass for being whiny.

On the action front the movie fires on all cylinders and leaves no room for action junkies to whine about the lack of excitement. One thing I did not expect however was a twist at the mid point which drastically changes the tone. It was a welcome change up that gave the movie just a tiny bit more depth. Morgan Freeman also swears which was quite unexpected and funny if you are use to his demeanor that is normally present in the many other roles he has had.

What Didn’t Work For Me

For the first half of the movie James McAvoy’s character is overly whiny. He is put into a crazy situation but he did not have to be a complete wimp in order for his transformation to amazing assassin to be believable. On the topic of character transformation I really would have liked to see more assassination jobs before his showdown with the man he is told killed his father instead of the boring training montage they went with.

I said above that there is quite a bit of action for those in need of some excitement it is just too bad that much of it is in slow motion. Utilizing it for key scenes is fine but it gets boring very quickly. Along with the overuse of slow motion my suspension of belief was repeatedly getting tested way too often.

For Matrix fans take note of one of the final battles structure and setup because you may notice it resembles a classic scene from The Matrix. In any action movie the best part is usually the final confrontation near the end of it. Wanted closes with a scene mimicking an early scene in the movie and has the main character talking directly to the camera. When a character talks to the camera you are breaking down the fourth wall so it should be impactful not just thrown in to try to look clever.

Should You Watch This Movie?

Wanted is the perfect 6 on my rating scale. It has enjoyable moments yet still falls short of being average and is not worthy of being called bad.

My Rating (Out of 13)

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