As the impresario behind gravity-defying Russian blockbuster Night Watch, it's inevitable that Hollywood would come calling for Timur Bekmambetov. With a studio budget and an international cast, including two Oscar winners, Timur cooks up a Hong Kong-styled actioner bursting with fast cars and big guns. Our unlikely hero is mild-mannered Chicago accountant Wesley Gibson (Atonement's James McAvoy), whose father died when he was a tot. Wesley never learned to stand up for himself, and his girlfriend, boss, and best buddy all take advantage until the seductive Fox (Angelina Jolie) rescues him from a sharpshooter named Cross (The Pianist???s Thomas Kretschmann). After which, she whisks him away to a mansion on the edge of town to meet the other members of the Fraternity, where leader Sloan (Morgan Freeman) informs Wesley that Cross, a rogue agent, executed his father. Sloan believes Wesley has the goods to take him out, so he undergoes the Fraternity's brutal training regimen (Marc Warren and Common dish up some of the abuse). When he's ready, Sloan sends him out to fulfill his duty, but matters become complicated when Wesley finds out someone isn't telling the truth, leading our former milquetoast to exact an elaborate revenge. For those who've been following McAvoy's career to date, Wanted will surely come as a surprise. In adapting Mark Millar's comic series, Timur offers buckets of blood and a smidgen of depth, but fans of The Matrix and Mr. and Mrs. Smith will want to give this one a look. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

This film is an average hollywood assassin thriller, which so far, puts it at average marks. The plot is ok, the plot twist is highly predictable, but not bad as such and the action sequences are solid at best. The cinematography is your traditional lush blockbuster visual style, which suits the film. That was the good stuff.

Now for the bad stuff. The action sequences are like I said, solid.. in most places, that is. A great deal of the action scenes involve stupid, completely unfeasible feats of physics-defiance - you've all seen the Dodge Viper collecting James McAvoy in the trailers, somehow WITHOUT breaking his ankles, a rather more probable outcome in realism. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind ridiculous contempt of physics in films - it's just due to the overblown idiotic nature of it that it doesn't work here. Another criticism is the ridiculous (and ample) slowing of time. Maybe they thought adding another 5 minutes with so much slowtime would heighten the agony and offence more (as if the film didn't do that anyway with the line: "I used to be a loser, just like all of you" Well thanks, whichever cock-writer told me I'm a loser. At least I didn't splurge my stupid dorky wet-dream into the script of this awful film). It does heighten the agony. The CGI is equally poor. The "Wanted" bullet is on the level of the graphics of a twatting N64!! It's lazy and poor, and reflects the whole film.

Talking of James McAvoy, he's given a stupidly ridiculous role - a high-pitched, skinny wiener with an average job who inexplicably becomes a hench assassin in six weeks, whining like a bitch all the way through, despite apparently becoming an emotionless killer. This process is cheesy and done to death in the world of cinema, and done badly here. In this way, the script and role given to McAvoy (who by the way, should NEVER be made to be an American ever again) is just totally wrong, while Jolie does nothing but pout like a coy Zellweger and Freeman is wasted in his aloof and wooden role. The acting, casting and scipt can therefore generally be considered rubbish. Being the core elements of the film, there's nothing else to say - it's poor and stupid. It's like it was made by idiotic anime fans, who tried to mix graphic novel style and American "coolness". It just doesn't work. Buy Collateral instead if you want a less stupid, more complete assassination thrill ride. If your brain cells are lonely and sparse, or you like Hollywood's sense of "style", then maybe you'll enjoy this.

Wanted was brillent in so many ways. The most violent film I seen in a long time but had a dark twist. I like comic books but this one rocked. The 18 meant they could go much more futher with the ways. I'm a big James Mcavoy fan and Angelina Joile I loved. It was pure gold for a US comic book. Blood of mayhem and his character got torched lodes of times.

I like Morgan Freeman from the dark knight and many other US films. In this one he played a dark character for assaintents and he had fighting skills. Of course I must comment on the sunts. The car scene and more plus the blood made the scene more intertresting and a dark adult comic book needs that to make it stand out. I like the man from Hustle, he was good in the film but was bad an sadly got killed. In all fairness this is a 10.

So if there is a Wanted 2 then hopefully we have more violence and maybe new characters. Who knows. Tell me what you think of what wanted 2 might be like. But this film rocks and I would recommend this to any adults who like comic books, and the occainal adult violence and more then watch Wanted the bst film ever.

Maybe Wanted 2 will have more darkness and be a bit longer than the first. But it was still good

Big and loud and magic twisty bullets oh my! It's certainly jam packed with action pieces. Y'know...the usual really silly CGI enhanced suspension of disbelief stuff.

The plot's taken *very* loosely from the graphic novel which featured a secret society of super villains who had destroyed all the superheroes, made everyone forget and then more or less controlled the world.

In the movie version, we have assassins with enhanced senses and who can fire bullets miles away with point blank precision and are taking orders from a very dodgy Morgan Freeman and a magical talking lo-...no wait...I won't spoil that bit. That bit was kinda neat.

Anyhoo. It all goes a bit pear shaped once the anti-hero that they've plucked from his crappy booooooooring life to train into a kickass killing machine to avenge his dead father, finally twigs that these people are nuttier than a squirrel fart and eeeeevil.

Angelina Jolie goes for a laconic enigmatic type of crazy which I kinda liked. Unfortunately, no one else seems to have any character development bar wandering about looking lost and grumpy and having a dip in the magical Spa Pools of Waxy Healing.

There's a bit about a Rat Guy but his gibberings are all too gibbery. Gun Guy is frowny and Knife Guy likes hanging out in the meat locker. Punch-y Guy punches and has nice hair. I think. I've forgotten him already. Oh, and Morgan Freeman is OLD and CULTURED and thus has a library with BOOKS and STUFF.

None of these people seem to have PERSONALITIES.

Unfortunately, to me, a bland cast does not a good movie make and no matter how many twisty bullets and gravity defying stunts they do, I just won't care.

In fact it all gets somewhat same-y and desensitizing after a while.

Overall though, 'Wanted' wasn't amazingly awful. I did like the not so very surprising revelation about Mr anti-hero's dad and how Fox dealt with betrayal at the finale. It was okay. This movie was kind of like watching a special effects heavy pop video without the pop music.

Fantastic visuals but sadly still a rather hollow affair.

wanted seems to have been cast aside in film of the year polls and been overshadowed by the (stunning) dark knight.for sheer mindless friday night thrills though this delivers in spades.its an ott,violent ,foul mouthed action packed blockbuster that doesnt take itself seriously and if you go along with it you'll have a blast. the cast look like they did,james mcavoy and angelina jolie are terrific and theres enough blacker than black humor here to even out the gruesome,nasty violence.action scenes are terrific with some mindblowing stunts.sure it rips off the matrix but who cares?bring on the sequel.

Mindless violence with no particular purpose, a plot that should have stayed on the back of a cigarette packet and actors going through the motions for a pay cheque. Big, loud, brash action cannot disguise a premise and plot so preposterous that this should never have made it through the script re-writes. I can see the market for eye candy and cartoon violence movies (and have enjoyed many in my time), but this sets a depressing precedent for taking any iota of intelligence out of a script to present supposedly raw action at any cost. It finally lost me at the introduction of the "Loom of Fate"!! - up to that point I was willing to give it a shot (so to speak). With so much talent on screen put to such ridiculous use, this should have been called 'Wasted'. My advice - if you're a true movie fan, avoid this at all costs. It'll leave you wanting that 110 minutes back to do something more useful instead.