Wanted (2008, USA/German)

Wanted feels like what you might get if you mated Fight Club with The Matrix and then crossbred the result with director Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch series. Like the Watch films, Wanted is certifiably batshit insane, though it never rises (sinks?) to the same crackpot levels. Part of the problem is the miscasting of James McAvoy as a meek office drone who discovers his destiny as a bullet-bending assassin. I like McAvoy, but his American accent is way over-the-top, and his voice-over is one of the most grating I’ve ever encountered. Too much explication, not enough bullet-bending and Jolie-fu. In the action sequences (which comprise at least a third of the film’s run time), Bekmambetov really lets fly, particularly in the penultimate sequence that must surly be the most egregious example of animatronic rat abuse ever committed to film. But then everything gets dragged down again with a lot of malarkey about fate and righteousness, blah blah blah. Really, can’t a girl just sit back and enjoy some ridiculous car (and train) chases and Morgan Freeman saying “motherfucker”?