Angelina Jolie always gets her shot.
(2008) Fantasy Action (Universal) James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terrence Stamp, Common, Thomas Kretschmann, Kristen Hager, Marc Warren, David O’Hara, Konstantin Khabensky, Chris Pratt, Lorna Scott. Directed by Timur Bekmambitov
Some of us fall into a vocation due to circumstances. Others pursue a career with a vengeance. However, there are those who are almost pre-determined into a role because of genetics.
Wesley (McAvoy) is a cube drone whose life is a series of unending humiliations; his boss bullies him, his girlfriend openly cheats on him. His life is going nowhere and what’s worse, he knows it and doesn’t think it’s ever going to change.
But change it does (trust me, nobody wants to see a movie about a doormat for two hours). A beautiful woman who identifies herself as Fox (Jolie) saves him from a gunman and the two indulge in a wild car chase in the city of Chicago. Wesley is brought into the world of the Fraternity, a brotherhood (and sisterhood) of assassins who have been trained to perform impossible kills, curving bullets to defy gravity and engaging in single hand-to-hand combat that would make Jackie Chan jealous. The Fraternity is led by Sloan (Freeman), a taciturn killer himself. He gets his marching orders from the Loom of Fate whose fabric contains skewed threads that act as a kind of binary code. It’s very complicated and weird.
Wesley finds out that his father was once one of their members but was murdered recently and the man who murdered him is after Wesley but before he can go up against someone like that, Wesley is going to have to train and I mean big time. When he gets hurt, he’s put in a special wax bath that heals his wounds.
Soon he’s ready for his first kill and it turns out Wesley has quite a knack. Genetics, you see. Soon Wesley is embroiled in the mystery of his father’s assassination and discovers revenge can lead to all manner of questions, some of which have some dangerous answers.
This is Bekmambitov’s first English language film after the excellent Russian CGI-fests Night Watch and Day Watch. He has a definite visual style and an affinity for action. These are some of the most innovative action sequences since The Matrix which is high praise indeed.
McAvoy was apparently a hard sell to the studio because of his somewhat understated quality but here he proves himself capable of leading an action movie (which he has done since in X-Men: First Class this past summer). He plays both the nebbish and the stone cold killer with equal believability which is vital for the success of the movie.
Jolie is as good a female action star as there’s ever been and you can tell she was born for roles like this. A femme fatale with a cold exterior and colder interior, she’s sexy and deadly. Although she’s too big a star to do it now, she’d make the ultimate Bond girl. She does her stunts with the grace and elegance of a dancer.
Bekmambitov has a wonderful visual style that draws a distinct line between the dreary cubicle-dweller’s life and the life of a career assassin. The colors are muted and drab in the former; vivid and electric in the latter. The pace is mile-a-minute and although there’s kind of a lull when the big twist is revealed, it picks up towards the end.
This is mindless summer fun that defies logic but so what? Those who studied even the most remedial physics will know that this stuff doesn’t ever happen but this isn’t the real world, it’s movies so you physics majors can take your objections and stick them where it’s anatomically impossible to put them.
WHY RENT THIS: Amazing stunts and a wonderful visual sense. Jolie seems to hit her stride in these sorts of action roles.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Stretches believability to the breaking point.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s a whole lot of violence – some of it gruesome. There’s also a bit of bad language and a bit of sexuality as well.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was shooting in Chicago at the same time The Dark Knight was. Wanted creator Mark Millar was caught sneaking onto TDK set to check out the Batpod by producer Lauren Shuler Donner and was escorted off the set.
NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There’s a motion comic and on the Blu-Ray edition, the Universal U-Control feature puts assassin profiles on the screen whenever new assassins pop up.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $341.4M on a $75M production budget; the movie was a hit.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
TOMORROW: The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
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