Wanted

I thought the trailers for this film made it look like garbage, some sort of Matrix rip-off. I was very wrong, because this is one of the summer movie season’s greater surprises. During this film, James McAvoy’s character, Wesley Gibson, morphs from a whiny button-pusher into full blown action hero, with much credibility. Wesley is enlisted by an ancient order of assassins who claim he is the son of one of their late, great brothers. Wesley finds out he has amazing physical and mental skills, and soon finds himself “curving” bullets (shooting bullets that curve around obstacles on the way to their targets). Along the way, he finds out some amazing secrets about his new killer friends. Angelina Jolie is 100 percent badass as the assassin who trains him, as is Morgan Freeman as their mysterious leader. Director Timur Bekmambetov (maker of the Nightwatch and Daywatch horror films) employs an exciting visual style, doing things with bullets that have never been done before.