6/20/08

Wanted

Non-stop violence, bloody beatings, grisly bullet wounds, vehicular mayhem, a spectacularly unrealistic train wreck and cold-blooded killings. Hmmm... I guess we got our money's worth, huh?

All those things notwithstanding, I actually got a kick out of watching Angelina Jolie ("Beowolf" and "Lara Croft") transform the nerdish nobody James McAvoy ("Becoming Jane," "Starter for Ten" and "Atonement") from a browbeaten, cube-dwelling accountant into an action hero, a trained operative and a fully fledged member of a secret society of assassins.

His boss had abused him, his girlfriend was unfaithful to him and his best friend betrayed him, but he had never done a thing about it. Once the pillow-lipped Jolie takes him to our favorite authority figure, Morgan Freeman ("The Bucket List" and "Bruce Almighty"), he is shown that he has some of the attributes that his father also had. His father had abandoned him when he was a week old, so he wants to take their word for it.

This ridiculous movie is messy, cartoonish, silly and illogical but the satisfying ending had the audience applauding.

Actually, I was glad to go home, even though, as a rule, I enjoy watching McAvoy.