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Wanted (2008)

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Time Out rating

Average user rating

77 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Russian fabulist Timur Bekmambetov (‘Nightwatch’, ‘Daywatch’) must have spent a lot of time watching the ‘Matrix’ films before embarking on this action caper. James McAvoy is a nervy, stifled office lackey who is one day asked to join a secret fraternity of assassins by a heavily tattooed Angelina Jolie. Why? Because he possesses the innate ability to curve bullets with his mind, of course.

Based in the back room of a textile factory, the team receive orders to kill via the coded weavings of a magical loom. So far-fetched is all this (the threat of an army of exploding rats has already been made) that when overseer Morgan Freeman delivers the line ‘We call this… the Loom of Fate’, you won’t bat an eyelid. It’s already the lingua franca.

This is cinema for people who slow down at car wrecks: Bekmambetov takes pleasure in showing us a bullet slowly boring in or out of the cranium while taking great care in sculpting the resultant swirl of CG blood. McAvoy is reasonable in his first action lead, but offers a tin-eared approximation of the US accent that comes across less like the middle-class salaryman he is and more Jewish New York cab driver (think Bob Hoskins).

There’s an eccentric otherness to the film which just manages to sustain the interest, but whether Bekmambetov’s talents lie in filmmaking rather than gaming or comics is debatable.

Author: David Jenkins 2008-06-24 12:06:38

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

Alex said...

Posted on Jun 26 2008 00:05 When I saw Timur Bekmambetov's ‘Nightwatch’ (which in Russia was called 'Nochnoyi pozor' ('Night shame') I gave myself a promise never ever to see a movie made by Bekmambetov again. So, I easily skipped ‘Daywatch’ (which you can imagine in Russia was called 'Dnevnoyi pozor' ('Day shame'), but is there any chance to skip a movie with James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie as co-stars? Eventually yes if the director of the movie is Bekmambetov. Why? Because he did not move much away from the same bullshit you can find in 'Nochnoyi pozor'. So, the outcome is c.2 hours of wasted time. Strongly encourage to spend them on something else. I wanted to put -5 as a rating, but there is no negative scale...

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Boysie said...

Posted on Jun 25 2008 18:50 Saw a preview today. The first hour is pretty inventive with a good use of sound effects to get inside the head of the depressed protagonist. Pretty tasty car action and gunplay. This is followed by an over violent second half. Jolie is wasted in this film and the dialogue needed spicing up. Warning: if you have a phobia of rats, you may wish to avoid this film.

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