Angelina Jolie's R-rated action thriller Wanted took in $51 million its first weekend at the box-office, making it the #1 June opening for an R-rated film in history, and the 6th-biggest first weekend ever for a movie with that MPAA rating.
As a service to you, his fans, the Crabster hauled himself out to this. Actually, I have to confess...I'm a fan of the director Timur Bekmambetov, who made the insane Russian action movies Night Watch and Day Watch. So I would've seen it anyway. But let's pretend I did it for you.
The movie stars the scrumptious James McAvoy as this incredibly nebbishy office worker who finds out that his father was a member of an ancient society of assassins operating out of a Chicago textile mill. I say "was" because the old man has been bumped off by this other rogue assassin who the weaver/assassins now want dead. So, McAvoy has to fulfill his destiny by joining the assassins and doing in the man who killed his father.
McAvoy's tutor is played by Angelina Jolie in all her hardcore tattooed glory. The problem with Angie here is the same as always...she's too damned impressed with herself and her zen bad-ass minimalism. And she's always got that little I'm so hot smirk playing at the corners of her lips. Thankfully, the movie does not depend on her. It hinges on the director's ability to conceive and stage outlandish action sequences, and weave them through a twisty, wholly unbelievable plot. Bekmambetov is good at that, though the movie lacks the darkly mythic gravitas of his Russian films.
Bekmambetov's trump card is his exuberance. He enjoys his work. He likes jokes but doesn't undermine his own effects by winking at you. His energies are infectious. I hate action movies that give you the feeling of mere application of craft - there needs to be some underlying conviction and Bekmambetov has that. A movie with this much carnage could easily become wearying, but Bekmambetov gets such a kick out of topping himself that you get swept up in it. As nonsense goes, this is top-drawer. And, without spoiling the ending...well, let's just say something happens to Angie that will probably get a cheer out of certain people.
