Reel To Reel: Wanted

The Matrix unplugged.

How It Rates: **
Starring: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie
Rated: R
Red Flags: Copious and INTENSE bloody violence, Numerous f-bombs, Two sex scenes -- definitely not for the kids!

I liked Wanted. But all through the movie I kept thinking back to the first chapter of the Matrix trilogy and how it blew my mind with its defiance of physics and its nightmarish take on virtual reality. Wanted bends bullets and creates its own nightmare universe, right down to Angelina Jolie playing Fox, a riff on Matrix's Trinity. Although it's exciting and gripping, it's not particularly original, save for a few scenes.

Wesley (McAvoy) plays a wimpy, beleaguered, panic-pill-popping cubicle slave at an insurance company. His obese, ugly boss cuts him down every day. His best friend is hooked up with his cranky girlfriend and rubbing it in his face. He's nearly broke and living in a grungy Chicago flophouse until one day when he's caught in a gunfight at a store. Scooped up by Fox, Wesley learns assassins took out his father, who was a member of a super-secret cult of killers led by Sloan (Freeman, playing yet another variation on the same role). Furthermore, he has abilities with a gun a sharpshooter would envy. Sounds like Neo, uh, Wes is "the one."

Invigorated by the knowledge of who he really is and longing to take control, Wes trains to become a killer, looping bullets around people's heads like Venus Williams delivering a killer serve. He gets orders from a "loom of fate" that spells out the names of victims in woven binary code -- no stinkin' computers needed in this matrix. But Wes is eager to take out the man who killed his father, although it will lead him to uncover a devastating truth.

Wanted is unapologetically bloody and profane. It enjoys its violence in a cathartic, escapist way. The Matrix had depth and questions about the technological world we created. Its violence was mostly virtual, not physical. It's not correct to call Wanted a poor imitation, because it's not poor. But even though the movie evolved from a series of comic books, it's still an imitation.