It’s Matrix, minus the black, with gallons of glam and gore. Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted is choc-a-bloc with action sequences suddenly slowing down to bullets carving out impossible trajectories and still finding their mark.

Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is the typical office wimp, until the night he encounters Fox (Angelina Jolie). Fox is part of a thousand-year-old secret gang of assassins called The Fraternity, headed by Sloan (Morgan Freeman).

Wesley learns that his father was part of The Fraternity until he was killed by a rebel member, Cross.

So naturally he joins them, hoping for a chance to avenge his father’s murder. Twists and betrayals soon follow with ample use of hair-raising graphics (which have certainly set new standards in the industry). McAvoy is perfect as the unlikely, reluctant hero and Jolie is as foxy as her name. There isn’t much to say for Freeman though, whose screen-time looks like it was taken out of the edited refuse of his earlier flicks.  On the downside, there are just twenty-too-many bullets bursting out of heads, even if it be in the name of stylised violence.

Further, the movie glorifies blood baths as the only way to “gain control of your life”. Lets hope impressionable minds recognise this as fiction and don’t take it too seriously.