Wanted

Kickass guns? Check. High-speed car chases? Check. Ridiculously impossible stunts? Check. Angelina Jolie in tight clothing? Check. Check. Check.

One could say that this review of 'Wanted' (the biggest action movie of 2008 after 'The Dark Knight') should end there. After all what more is there that you need to know? Does it matter whether the script is good? Or the plot concise and tense? What about whether the acting is professional? Or the drama well paced and realistic? No, it doesn't. 'Wanted' is a 14-year-old boy's wet dream: big explosions, loads of shooting… and Ange in that tight clothing. Everything else is irrelevant.

Luckily, director Timur Bekmambetov thought so too. And while the script isn't bad, the acting decent enough (except for Ange's permanent scowl) and the plot exactly what you've come to expect from a comic book movie, you're having too much fun to notice.

Equally innocuous is James McAvoy in the lead role. Hardly action hero material, the usually dreamy McAvoy manages to pull off the character of Wesley Gibson with ease — although he's a little more comfortable when playing the apathetic loser Wesley we start off with than the gung-ho, street fighting, ass kicking Wesley that gradually emerges.

A financial "somethingorother", he hates his job, his boss and his best friend who's sleeping with his girlfriend. Yes, he hates her too. He has no money, no ambition and sleepwalks through life. Until suddenly a tightly clad, scowling lass with a big gun arrives on the scene, taking Wesley away to a, wait for it, secret textile facility run by, wait for it, the secretive Fraternity to, yes, wait for it, train him into becoming an assassin. He protests at first but when on discovering that he can curve the trajectory of bullets to shoot the wings off flies, the loser decides to stick it out. With the help of Sloan, Fox and a couple of others with equally silly names, Wesley becomes an efficient killing machine doing the bidding of The Fraternity who get their orders from, wait for it, a massive loom.

Despite the obvious flaws and eccentricities, this bastard lovechild of 'Shoot 'Em Up', 'The Matrix' and 'Spiderman' is actually highly entertaining, with just the right amount of action, drama, comedy and romance and an interesting enough story to keep you guessing right to the end.

But this isn't important. There's senseless violence, slow-motion fight scenes and yes, Ange in lycra.