If you haven’t already reached your quota of summer movie
action and adventure between “Iron Man” and “Indiana Jones,” there comes
“Wanted,” the American debut of Russian-Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov. It’s
the film that returns the handgun to its rightful place in Angelina Jolie’s
grip, a la “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” or the “Tomb Raider” franchise. Need I say
more?

“Wanted” tells the story of average man, Wesley Gibson
(James McAvoy), who learns he has a far-from-average destiny to live up to. As
is typical in this genre, that destiny involves killing people in creative and
entertaining manners. Jolie, along with Morgan Freeman (who have the requisite badass,
monosyllabic names of Fox and Sloan, respectively), recruit young Wesley into a
secret fraternity of assassins that maintain the stability of the world through
high-priority executions. They’re assassins, but they only kill bad people, so
it’s OK to be on their side!

From there on out, it looks to be action in spades and a
fight in just about every setting imaginable. In just the trailer alone there’s
a fight in a grocery store, on a train, on the road, in an office, in a butcher
shop … you get the idea. The movie’s reality is as flexible as its plot, with
such feats as “curving” bullets or stopping a bullet with a blade. This is “The
Matrix” without the higher order cognition. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be
fun. June 27.