Grim Weaver

Can you spot the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassador?

Try to imagine a new-age version of The Matrix, the seminal end-of-the-millennium fable about the future of humanity and technology. The problem with "Wanted" is that we've seen these go-for-broke high-wire acts before, and while CGI-enhanced feats of derring-do fail to deliver the same way they did in 1999, there's still some dazzle in watching seemingly ordinary schmoes bend the laws of physics. Unlike The Matrix, the world of Wanted is real (for lack of a better term). No one's dodging bullets here. Bullets are dodging people... and cars... and buildings.

Wanted is yet another summer of 2008 movie entry based on a graphic novel, and while it seems that movies based on exaggerated 4-color pulp characters might be reaching critical mass, it seems that Hollywood has not yet begun to pillage the resource that is the comic medium. As Wanted creator Mark Millar puts it, "Hollywood eats up ideas quickly, but comics come up with 300 new ideas a month." Unless you spend some of your free time keeping up with the formerly underground world of comics and their big brother graphic novels, you might not know that two of the finer movies made this century were also based on comic books. If you could name Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition and David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, then go to the head of the class. I would have also accepted American Splendor and Ghost World, but neither one of those movies really resonated with me. No points for V for Vendetta or Sin City. Too easy. From Hell, the Hughes' brothers adaptation of Alan Moore's retelling of the Jack the Ripper legend, is automatically disqualified because no turn-of-the-century prostitute would look like Heather Graham. But I digress.

Wanted has little in common with the grounded tales of fathers, husbands and their families in Road to Perdition and A History of Violence. In fact, the less you dwell on Wanted the better off you'll be. You see, there's a centuries-old clan of weavers who are really genetically-predisposed assassins that take their orders from fabric knitted by a magic loom that commands a large and otherwise vacant room in a crumbling warehouse. By translating strand positions into binary code and converting the code to names, this ancient society has mercilessly and without reason (other than the magic loom told them to) knocked off thousands of people over the years. Fine. Since we're bending the laws of physics, I can go along with this too.

I suppose the most amazing thing about Wanted is that some real actors signed up for this high-gloss hokum. James McAvoy, coming off critically lauded roles in The Last King of Scotland and Atonement, plays the ordinary guy stumbling toward his violent destiny with more skill than the script warrants, and Academy award winners Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman seem to be enjoying their turns as two veteran assassins, Sloan and Fox. However, the latter two casting decisions feel like narrative shorthand. Oh look, Freeman is the savvy father/mentor figure and Jolie plays the badass chick who likes cars, guns and knives. I would compare this turn to her lead role in Tomb Raider if Fox didn't make Lara Croft look like a Jane Austen heroine. Jolie has always been able to do more with fewer lines than most, and she is reportedly responsible for the laconic spin on the source material. I'd like to think she's just adhering to the adage, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

I could have justified no review of this movie based on that adage alone, but there is something of value here. Like The Incredible Hulk, this film doesn't pretend to be much more than the vehicle for stylish and often thrilling action set pieces. While a movie that aims low and hits its target does not great cinema make, it is often better than the alternatives.