Wanted (2008)

This is a visually stunning movie. The special effects are wonderful, the cinematography is interesting, and Angelina Jolie is her usual hot self. That's about the extent of the positive.

I'll admit that I was entertained. I liked watching the film. But, you can't ask any questions about it because once you pull on one thread, the whole damned thing comes unraveled.

The premise is interesting. A young man is swept out of his boring job and into a life of an assassin. He's inherited a super-strength of sight and the ability to curve a bullet (the latter may be something that can be taught but it's not clear). He's brought in, supposedly, to avenge the death of his father but--stop reading here if you don't want any spoilers--surprise, surprise, that man was actually not his father. Instead, the head of the fraternity of assassins who have taken him in have sent him to kill not the man who killed his father but his father. This is not surprising. What is also not surprising is that the head of the fraternity (Morgan Freeman) is not a good guy. He manipulates the "loom of fate" (that's right, the loom of fate--I can't make that up) so that the people assassinated are those he needs out of the way for one reason or another--but we're never given any of those reasons. Soooooooo, Mr. new assassin decides to eliminate the head of the fraternity, getting revenge for his father's death, and bringing the fraternity back around to morality (as much as a frat of assassins can be moral). This backfires (sort-of) when the head of the frat tells Mr new guy and a group of the assassins (including Jolie and Common) that all of their names came up on the loom of fate. Mr new guy's explanation that the head has manipulated the loom does not stop Jolie from shooting a bullet around the circle, hitting all of the assassins including herself but leaving the new guy alive. That doesn't so much make sense because 1. Jolie doesn't know whether she's actually obeying or defying the loom, and thus fate, by killing all of them, 2. she doesn't kill the head which means he can train some new thugs, 3. she doesn't kill the new guy which means she hasn't carried out her last assignment of killing him and, thus, defies the loom and fate.

That's just the major problem with the end. The whole of the movie is riddled with holes. The morality of the movie is questionable--the morality it wants to have, not one I'm trying to impose. The philosophical aspects are skewed to the point of no return. The timeline seems questionable. One man at the beginning has some sort of superhuman jumping ability but we never get an explanation nor do we see that sort of ability--or any other save the sight--again in the film. And that's all if you can suspend belief that you can curve a bullet, that you can have super sight that allows you to slow down what you're looking at, that cars can actually do what they do in the film without some sort of apparatus, that there can exist a super elixir that heals broken bones and bullet holes and bruises etc, that James McAvoy could actually be as assassin much less achieve the physique he does in six months . . . . . .

See it because the special effects are cool, because you like Jolie or Morgan Freeman, just don't ask any questions of it and you'll be ok.