Wanted

Wanted may be the first film where a nobody is turned into an unstoppable assassin as a metaphor for getting off your arse and doing something with your life. McAvoy’s put-upon sad sack is recruited by a mysterious fraternity, with Jolie as his mentor and Freeman as its head, and told only he can kill the world’s greatest assassin. Though it really only exists as a demonstration of what can be done with cutting edge technology, a lot of money and a bit of imagination, on those terms Wanted succeeds superbly. Its debt to The Matrix is clear, both in the schmuck-turns-superhero premise and the mind-bending audacity of the action, with its bullet-curving and gravity-defying antics. But it manages to break free of its forebear to emerge as its own spectacular entity with pounding action, a raucous soundtrack and a turn from Jolie that is the essence of movie stardom, with McAvoy doing well not to be obliterated by her. Certain rum elements (The Loom of Fate?) threaten to stray into Pythonesque, but Wanted is, for the most part, a cracker. [Paul Greenwood]