Mindless summertime fun at the movies...

I always find kind of hard to rate a pure summer popcorn flick. Sometimes, we have an easy time suspending our knowledge of reality to just sit back and have some fun. Other times, it's quite difficult to watch an over-the-top action sequence and go, "Oh, c'mon. That's not just impossible, that's damn silly." The Matrix and its sequels cleverly got around this whole issue by simply placing almost all of its outlandish action and stunt sequences in a world where there were no rules and everything was possible. Superhero comic book films try to play within the world we know, yet somehow we tend to give those a pass, as well. Play a John Woo flick like Face Off or Mission: Impossible 2 though, and some (yes, I'm talking to you, FG) roll their eyes and contemplate walking out of the theater altogether. So this summer gave us Wanted, and I'm sitting here trying to figure out where it falls on this scale.

Loosely based on a comic book mini-series by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, Wanted takes the medium of its source material and its endless boundaries to the big screen to deliver an action-packed, violently crazy movie that's quite entertaining to watch...if you can stand a few flipping car sequences, magic healing baths, and an assassin's ability to bend the path of bullets, among other things. The film starts out by introducing us to Wesley, a poor sap of a guy stuck in a dead end cubicle job with a cheating girlfriend at home and lots of anxiety issues. Little does he know that he's the son of one of the world's most lethal assassins and shares the same genetic traits that give him the natural abilities to be the ultimate killing machine. After his father is killed, Wesley is given the chance to avenge his death by recruitment into The Fraternity, an assassins guild originating from an ancient group of weavers that somehow keep peace in the world and are mystically told who their next targets for death will be via a magical loom. Yeah, sounds a bit silly, but the basic premise is kind of cool as it's presented in the movie.

Now don't be too skeptical about the inclusion of Angelina Jolie. As any good macho action flick, there isn't any romance involved in this. Maybe a gratuitous flash of her butt (which I was surprised she agreed to given her Hollywood clout these days), but otherwise she's quite the dangerous woman with a gun (or a car), and she seems perfectly cast in appearance to what you would imagine a female comic book character come to life as being. Her role is actually relatively secondary, though. The real focus is on Wesley, played by James McAvoy, a strange choice which makes sense when you realize the need to have the wimpy guy at the beginning established so that we can actually empathize with his situation and care about what happens to him as the story progresses. Morgan Freeman, as always, is reliable, and I got quite a hoot out of him getting a bit out of character and doing a little something more in tune with Samuel L. Jackson towards the end.

But to the real reason you'd go see this movie--the action. Yes, it's WAY over the top. Yes, it requires ALL KINDS of suspension of disbelief. But if you can put that on hold, it's presented quite well. Much of the sequences owe a lot to The Matrix trilogy, and at times it seems like they almost copied scenes from those groundbreaking film. But, hey, it's the summer. This is no season to think and to judge. Go see Wanted, enjoy it for what it is, and chow down on a tub of popcorn (yes, I'm talking to you, FG).