An ancient fraternity of Assassins… An unfulfilled Destiny… Hunted for reasons beyond comprehension.

 

Pretty cliché, wouldn’t you say? That’s what I thought when I saw the first trailers for the new movie Wanted.

 

Then I had a chance to see it.

 

Lets get straight to the heart of the matter. The opening was like an alternate version of the Matrix. The ending was pretty much right out of Equilibrium.

 

Stuff we’ve all seen before. Plots that have been used in numerous movies pretty much since movies began.

 

Despite this, or who knows, maybe because of this, I enjoyed the movie. It certainly wasn’t the best movie I’ve seen thus far this year, and I doubt that it will be in my top five favourites of 2008, but I’d say it’ll make my top ten.

 

Before I go any further, let me state again, for the record that I will not give out any spoilers OTHER than what you will have seen in the trailers from various sources. I know, spoilers tend to get on peoples nerves.

 

So, a mild, meek, and rather spineless accounts manager for a nameless corporation lives day to day under the thumb of a tyrannical office manager, a overbearing and high maintenance girlfriend and a back stabbing best friend.

 

It goes without saying he hates his life and what he HASN’T done with it. Catchy, eh?

 

Suddenly, without any warning, he has his life turned upside down when he discovers that he’s the son of one of the greatest assassins that has ever lived, and because of this, his life is about to become forfeit.

 

He is given a pretty easy choice. Join this ancient fraternity of assassins and follow in his fathers footsteps, and avenge the death of his father, or die.

 

Well, come on now, is that really a choice? Unless you WANTED to shake off your mortal coil, yeah, you’d join wouldn’t you?

 

Of course, as you saw in the trailer, he ends up joining the fraternity and undergoes some pretty intense training.

 

I personally would be tempted to choose death, truth be told.

 

Anyhow, I won’t go into any more details about the plot as it wouldn’t be fair to any would be watchers of this movie.

 

Now, it was very action intense. I guess it would be pretty dull otherwise if it wasn’t. Was the action on par with other movies, say the two I mentioned at the beginning? The Matrix, no, but it was pretty close to Equilibrium.

 

It was very violent. I wouldn’t take a kid to see the movie, although I guess when it comes out on video it wouldn’t be all that difficult for them to see it. I’d let my thirteen year old watch it, as he’s seen worse. But younger than teens? I’d be very hesitant. Just for the blood alone. There wasn’t that much gore, but again, it was very violent.

 

It had some pretty good chases, both in vehicles and on foot, including one through a train. Hey, it showed it in the trailer so I’m not spoiling things here!

 

The movie did make fair use of two relatively new phenomena’s to cinema over the past decade - Bullet time and Gung Fu.

 

So, it was pretty cool to watch.

 

Oh, and before I forget, this movie is just one of lets see…FIVE movies that have either come out or are coming out this year that is based on a comic book. Earlier this year, at the end of April I remember going to the Calgary Comic Expo and talking briefly to both the publisher and the artist of the Wanted comic. I was quite surprised to see that it was a comic at first.

 

Did I pick it up? Nope, I wanted to, but the prices autographs were costing kind of broke my budget. Sorry, I digress.

 

Bottom line is the movie was a fun action flick, lots of gunplay, lots of violence without gore, and plenty of humour to keep you laughing.

 

Worth spending your hard earned cash on.

 

3.5 out of 5