Wanted is this Summer's guilty pleasure

"Wanted"
Starring: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie
***.5/****

The rated R Summer action flicks have been a thing of the past. In the last few years, comic book films have taken over the Summer. With "Wanted", this over the top, balls to the wall action flick hopefully will give the action genre a severe boost.

Russian director, Timur Bekmambetov is quick with his constanly moving camera, as he films all the action scenes at a high pace with no time to breathe in between. The story centers on Wesley Gibson (McAvoy) who is the standard average joe office worker who no one appreciates. His best friend is even sleeping with his girlfried. Wesley is too afraid to even say a word about it.

After Wesley's presumed dead assassin of a father is killed, an orginzation called "The Fraternity" recruits Wesley to kill the man that killed his father. Wesley believes his father to be dead 25 years ago, Fox (Jolie) explains to him that he was gun down the day before on a rooftop.

It takes some time, but Gibson is soon training in a mansion with the likes of Fox, and The Fraternity's boss, Sloan, played by Morgan Freeman. Wesley discovers that The Fraternity lives by an ancient, unbreakable code: to carry out the death orders given by emotionless Fate itself.

We see the usual action cliches, the young pupil not believing in himself, and being beaten by those training him, they ask him to curve bullets, he doesnt believe in himself, so on and so forth.

With all the cliches, and what people think would be an obvious plot, there is more to this action flick. First off, James McAvoy truly shines in this role, this actor is versatile and is now on the Hollywood A-list. Angelina Jolie has never been sexier, and is believeable in this Mr. and Mrs. Smith type role. Morgan Freeman is the leader of a group, which he has proven capable in many a film.

The special effects are excellent, the action sequences are first rate along with the directing. About an hour into the film, a few engaging twists emerge in the plot making the film even more enjoyable.

I'm not sure if I'll forget about this movie in a week, or ff I'll see it again. But one thing is for sure, I haven't had this much fun in a movie in a while.