Review of "Wanted," starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie DVD version

Review of

Wanted, starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie DVD version

Two out of five stars

 This video is a bizarre combination of routine shoot-em-up gun and other weapon violence directed against humans with the supernatural and super powers possessed by humans along with a touch of Greek mythology. With all of that, the story is based on a classic story of the person stuck in a routine, boring job suddenly finding their life skills are far greater than they ever thought.

 Wesley is an accountant that is routinely yelled at by an overweight and overbearing woman boss and his response is to take anti-anxiety medication. One of his male co-workers is having sex with his girlfriend, so the man is a complete cuckold. Suddenly, he is thrust into a situation where a trained killer is after him and he is being defended by another trained killer.

 This introduces Wesley to an ancient organization called “the Fraternity,” a society of highly trained assassins that get their orders as to whom to kill from an automatic loom. By looking at how stitches in the weave are incorrect and converting those errors to a binary code and then to letters, the members of the Fraternity know the next person to assassinate. This of course is reminiscent of “The Fates” of Greek mythology.

 Wesley enters the training program and among other things he learns how to direct the paths of bullets so that they will go around obstacles and even travel non-linear paths for great distances. Another mystical trait is a magical healing bath that will cure even horrific injuries to the human body.

 The violence is intense, the situations sometimes over the top in terms of the environment that the “heroes” find themselves in. Wesley learns that his father was a key member of the Fraternity and it is his hope that he will learn more about his father and his role in how the universe and the fate of some of the people in it will play out.

 Wesley goes from one of the downtrodden to a super assassin in a short time, yet his role in the tapestry of the fates is ambiguous, even at the end. The violence and actions are sometimes just there because that is what this movie is, there is no real purpose to some of it. I found it rather dull and at times very predictable.