Wanted

Wanted is the biggest disappointment of the summer - a big, dumb excuse to shoot guns and blow up rats (yes, RATS!). The film takes what it would call a irreverent tone, but it's far too cute to get me excited. It opens with awful voice over that serves as our introduction to Wesley Gibson (James MacAvoy), an office drone searching for himself. We spend the movie with him to the detriment of every other character. No one else has a chance to really do anything (just leap, bend, beat, shoot, and act bad ass). Angelina Jolie barely registers in her much hyped role. Morgan Freeman gets his little speeches, but there's nothing to his character or the other assassins of the secret fraternity. That leaves MacAvoy to keep our interest. And he can't. He can't handle the humor or awkwardness of the character. His line delivery is all over the place. It's truly disarming after his superb work in Atonement. He just seems very uncomfortable in the role and carrying this movie. It's not really worth carrying. The visuals can be fascinating with rather seamless special effects and stunts, but it often undermines this with ill-used dialogue or visual cues. I couldn't bring myself to care about this movie or its inhabitants. The stakes are (I suppose) big, but I can't be invested in the characters' lives so the stakes are moot. These people are willing to kill and die for something bigger than themselves, but I have to care when they do.

*1/2