Wanted

There's little poetry in the script for Wanted. In fact, the sometimes silly dialogue and logic-testing script should be very happy to be called prose. But the words aren't the draw for this comic book adaptation; it's the visuals that will draw audiences in, and they're approaching fine art.

For anyone who's seen director Timur Bekmambetov's first two films, Night Watch and Day Watch, the visual mastery in Wanted shouldn't come as a surprise. But even though they were record-breakers in their native Russia, they barely dented the U.S. box office, and it's a shame. On a purely visual scale, the films are just as innovative as The Matrix, though the story about clashing good and evil supernatural beings can veer towards nonsense at times. Regardless, they're absolutely worth seeing, as is Bekmambetov's third film, as long as you go in expecting a visual feast (and a narrative famine).

James McAvoy, who is best known for roles in period films such as Atonement and Becoming Jane, is perfectly cast as Wesley Gibson, a self-admitted nobody who is miserable in his less-than-average life. But when a beauty aptly named Fox (Angelina Jolie in sexy, ass-kicking heroine mode) invites him to join a league of assassins, Gibson's daily grind is replaced with brutal training to kill the man who murdered his long-lost father.

Bekmambetov creates some of the most impressive action scenes to grace the screen in recent memory. Not only are there some grand set pieces, but each is also executed with such imagination that it's hard not to gasp a little. The director may only be three films in, but I'm curious--and excited--to see if he can maintain this three-Red-Bull-fueled level of energy in work to come.