See "Wanted"

[Mike Renzulli]

I took my girlfriend to see the movie Wanted staring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.

The film is loosely based on a DC comic series of the same name and encompasses elements of The Matrix, Blade Runner, Watchmen, and Fight Club.

Wesley Gibson is living a pathetic life with a disloyal girlfriend having an affair with an idiot he considers his best friend, and works in a job he hates with a boss everyone in his department (including him) loathes and has singled him out for harrassment.

During his visit to a pharmacy to fill a prescription, he is approached by a woman named Fox (Angelina Jolie). There Fox discloses to Wesley in the pharmacy that someone, later identified as an assassin named Cross, just murdered Gibson's father. After both escape near death that involves a hair raising gunfight and car chase with Cross, Fox takes him to the headquarters of a thousand-year old, secretive league of assassins she belongs to known as The Fraternity.

Wesley is invited by the group's leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), to join them since he holds a special gift involving heightened sensory perception that is a trait Sloan looks for when recruiting people to join his organization and simultaneoulsy offers Wesley the opportunity to take revenge upon Cross for his father's death.

Gibson initially declines but reconsiders and joins the group soon after having a heated, yet humorous, altercation with his boss which is the result of his realizing that Sloan's offer will give him a new lease on life.

I will leave it to you to find out if Wesley survives the group's intense training sessions, finds and kills Cross and why Cross is killing members of The Fraternity.

Like Iron Man and The Dark Knight, Wanted is one of the best movies I have seen so far this year.

Not only is Wanted an intense action flick that takes you on a nail-biting, adrenaline-filled roller coaster ride from near start to finish, it also has a libertarian message underneath its surface.

The Fraternity is a religious-based organization and Wesley is told to take Sloan and the tenets of the organization on faith and Wesley finds out the true intent of Sloan and the reason for The Fraternity's existence.

In the beginning, the audience is lead to believe there maybe more than meets the eye with The Fraternity and Sloan's true intent as well as the mystically-oriented weavings that name the group's targets which Sloan gives to Fraternity members to carry out missions.

Wanted points out that not only is it best for people to find and know the truth on their own but it is also a film that defends holding fast to one's principles, celebrates individuality and knowledge while debunking the Platonic idea that a group of elites can direct or give balance to society and the absurd, immoral idea held by futilitarians that to one person's rights must be violated for the benefit society or to save others.

Towards the end of the film Wesley reasserts his individuality and sense of justice thanks, in part, to the emplowerment he obtains as a result of training and much of the symbolism I witnessed in Wanted had me quietly cheering.

I envy James McAvoy (Wesley Gibson) for being able to kiss Angelina Jolie. If she wasn't married to Brad Pitt and if I wasn't in a relationship I would give my right arm to have that opportunity. Jolie is absolutely alluring in this film and I can't wait to see her playing Dagny Taggart when Atlas Shrugged is released in theaters.

The entire cast did a great job with their roles even though Jolie, Freeman, and McAvoy were the ones who acted in the most scenes due to the centrality of their characters and the action was a central feature of the film.

Fortunately, Wanted is doing very well at the box office since its release in June.

Unfortunately, the amount of movie theaters showing it is shrinking since its popularity is wearing off. If you want to see it before it leaves theaters; I would suggest doing so before new movie releases next Friday.

I regret I did not see this movie until now.

Better late than never.

Edited August 2, 2008 by Mike Renzulli

[Mike11]

At the risk of following such a good critique with something incredibly base...

Angelina Jolie is HAWT!

Hummannnah Hummannnah Hummannnah Hummannnah

I'll be seeing her, I mean this movie, for those two perfectly sculpted reasons alone.

[sbeaulieu]

two perfectly sculpted reasons alone.

And that's a fact.