I had already planned to eventually watch the Russian vampire trilogy–the record-setting Night Watch, its sequel Day Watch, and the yet-to-be-released Twilight Watch–but after watching Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted, the first two are now at the top of my Queue…

James McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson, a broke Account Service Rep–no, Account Manager–with a boss from hell, a girlfriend who’s sleeping with his best friend, and a life so boring his name produces no Google hits. That is until he meets Fox (Angelina Jolie), a trained assassin who gives him the red pill and shows him how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Wesley finds out that the father who abandoned him when he was a week old is actually a member of The Fraternity–a group of weaving assassins who have been getting their kill orders for 1000 years by reading the textiles produced by the Loom of Fate. Yup, you read that correctly–an automated loom spins fibers and the Fraternity leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman) translates the little imperfections hidden in the weave into names of some bad people who need to die. As Sloan says, “The loom provides, I interpret, you deliver.”

Wesley finds out that a member of The Fraternity has gone rogue and killed his father. Fox & Sloane hope that awesome assassin-ry runs in the family and begin to train Wesley through a series of brutally violent scenes, and eventually teach him how to “curve the bullet.” If it weren’t for The Matrix coming out nine years ago, the action scenes would seem amazingly innovative and fresh. However, even with the stylized predecessor, Wanted delivers some heart-racing, adrenaline-pumping, knee-slapping ri-donk-ulous action scenes. You can’t help but laugh when our hero actually inserts his gun into a head wound and continues to shoot through the dead fellow’s skull, using his corpse as a shield. The movie also delivers amazing driving scenes complete with flying barrel rolls and bus demolition. Near the end, Freeman channels Samuel L. Jackson in a scene that almost made me choke on a Milk Dud.

Much of Wanted was reminiscent of Shoot ‘Em Up, Fight Club, and The Matrix (doesn’t the above picture remind you of Agent Smith running through the rain in Revolutions?). While those latter two are great movies in their own right, Wanted is more like Shoot ‘Em Up, where it helps to watch the film in a packed theater and just sit back and enjoy the insane bloody ride. At the time I saw Shoot ‘Em Up, I was disappointed how this satire didn’t take itself seriously enough and I wasn’t ready for the journey it tried to take me on. However, I better prepared myself with Wanted–I knew, from the trailers, that this film was not going to take itself too seriously. The theater was nearly sold out and I just had fun every minute…

Well, almost every minute. The “Loom of Fate” was a bit silly, as was much of the later plot revolving around Sloan… but I still highly recommend you go see this while the theater will still be semi-packed. I just don’t think the effects of exploding foreheads and Angelina’s derrière will translate well to the small screen if you wait for this to come out on DVD.

But be sure you’re ready for a little of the old ultra-violence (yes, Terence Stamp also makes an appearance, although like last week’s Get Smart, he’s again under-used)… If you go in wanting some realism from a movie that implies moving really fast and flicking your wrist will cause bullets to curve, or if you’re unprepared to see McAvoy get beaten to a bloody pulp (it’s all part of the weavers’ training program, you see), you will probably have a reaction similar to the one I had to Shoot ‘Em Up. However, if you go in ready to just have a good time watching some crazy shit happen, I think this film will be everything you Wanted .