by KYW's Bill Wine
 
Wanted: an action thriller that actually thrills.  Like Wanted.
 
Nice surprise: here's the tall tale of one anonymous everyman's transformation into a uniquely skilled enforcer of alleged justice that doesn't insult your intelligence or wear out its welcome. It might even end up "America's most Wanted."
 
Adapted from the comic book series by Mark Millar and JG Jones, Wanted centers on a seemingly average guy, one Wesley Gibson, an account manager played by the versatile James McAvoy.  He's bored by (and anything but content with) his life. But then, after his estranged father dies, he's recruited by a group of trained assassins.
 
Angelina Jolie as Fox and her boss, Morgan Freeman as Sloan, urge Wesley to avenge his father's murder, informing him that his dad was a gifted and valued member of their 1,000-year-old secret society called The Fraternity, and that they live and work by a code in which they carry out orders to eliminate people who are already fated to die.  Their goal: to bring balance to the world.  Their motto: "Kill one, save a thousand."
 
Once he agrees to join them, they set out to train him, brutally, to allow his dormant powers to emerge (shades of Fight Club).  He develops his agility and his reflexes, goes from pathetic to powerful and from geek to freak as he works towards the goal of being able to kill with no hesitation or remorse (shades of The Matrix).
   
And he learns the Fraternity's uncanny trademark talent: shooting a weapon with bullets that follow a curved trajectory on their way to their target (shades of Bend It Like Beckham).
 
He is, it turns out, a chip off the old block: his dad was a master hitman, a super-assassin.  But he learns that only he can determine what exact path he should be following.
 
At the helm of his first American feature is Kazakhstan-born director Timur Bekmambetov, who made his name in Russia, and whose two vampire thrillers, Night Watch and Day Watch, so far comprise the highest-grossing franchise in the film history of the former Soviet Union.
 
The director's style is aggressive and relentless, his tone entertainingly sardonic.  This is an action flick that you laugh with, not at.  It posits a world dominated by cartoon physics, where bullets can curve, wounds can heal quickly, people can stand atop speeding trains, blows to the face don't compromise movie-star attractiveness, and the law of gravity takes summer vacations.
 
The director doesn't bother wasting time explaining the basic outrageousness of the premise.  Instead, he grabs you you by the lapels early on and uses a breathless editing rhythm to keep you plugged into the cheeky but tongue-in-cheek action sequences, all heavily caffeinated, inventively mounted, and aided by flamboyant special effects and vigorous stunt work.
 
The dialogue may not stick to the ribs, and the drama may not lodge in the memory, but there are satisfying surprises sprung along the narrative way.
 
McAvoy, not a generic action star but a real actor, knows how to take us with him on his interior journey as well as the one involving all those weapons and all that combat.  If ever a skilled actor demonstrated how much he alone could do to help lend the action genre some dramatic heft, it's McAvoy here.  He's a delight.
 
Oh, you could dismiss the whole enterprise as a juvenile power fantasy (it is certainly that, among other things), but the film itself transcends its cult-comic roots by offering a layered storyline and a complex protagonist.
 
So we'll bend a bullet around 3 stars out of 4 for a vivid, visual. visceral, and vicious roller coaster ride of a summer action thriller.  However you feel when it begins, by the time it ends, the preposterous but exhilarating Wanted may be just what you wanted.