Wanted is nothing you haven’t seen before, but it does entertain.  The script is nothing wonderful, but the action genre has been so exhausted that to even hold one’s attention without feeling you’ve wasted your money is a significant success for an action screenwriter.  The characters are amusing and the dialogue is not painful.

The action sequences are fantastic!  From a spinning sports car with a door flung open that scoops up a frightened MacAvoy to gunplay aboard a moving train, the stunts and sheer imagination of the action is solid.  I think audiences at large take for granted how complicated it is to choreograph such scenes.  Three cheers to the stuntmen, fight choreographer and F/X guys for their success here.

I personally saw the film for Morgan Freeman, who’s one of the greatest, most relaxed actors to ever grace the screen.  He’s been known to turn shit to gold, so I figured if he was in it, it would at least be decent.  He doesn’t disappoint, but certainly isn’t challenged in the role. 

The rest of the cast does equally well.  James McAvoy is as unlikely a bad-ass buff guy as Tobey Maguire, but he makes it work - and does a pretty good american accent.  And Angelina Jolie, despite being a mother now, continues playing the bad-ass chick.  Tattooed and playing her usual “I’ll kick your ass” attitude, she is as sexy as ever (perhaps more so, as she’s a grown-up now).

So if mindless action is what you’re in the mood for, it’s worth the price of admission.