Wanted

Rating:

* * *

Verdict:

Excess-adrenalin causes assassin fantasy action flick to get a little off target.

The search for a new

Matrix

continues. And  this time, at least, this geek empowerment fantasy has something like the visual inventiveness of its predecessor.

That's care of Hollywood's new favourite Russian, former ad man and director Bekmambetov, whose hit vampire epics

Day Watch

and I have much in common with

Wanted

's happily absurd set-up.

His previous nutty films share a liking for hails of silver bullets, causing many artful fountains of blood when they find their targets. Which can take some time as Bekmambetov sure is in love with those

Matrix

-patented effects of slow motion ballistics.

But based, as almost every multiplex movie of the minute is, on a comic book, and starting out like a mad collision of

The Office

and

Fight Club

,

Wanted

still lacks something.

Yes, it delivers gun-fetish violent, hyperkinetic action throughout and at a rather brisk pace. It's complete with gymnastic car chases and one spectacular train wreck (involving a carriage falling down the very chasm the plot logic disappeared down some hours earlier).

And it has James McAvoy, with shiny new American accent, trying to give it an emotional anchor as the geek of the piece - he's anxiety-ridden cubicle drone Wesley Gibson who suddenly finds he has the makings of a super-assassin.

He does his best to give

Wanted

some heart and a funnybone. While Angelina Jolie, as his gun-toting mentor, is there to give it - in no particular order - an arched eyebrow, some big lips, stick thin arms and, care of the film's most amusingly gratuitous shot, a healthy bum.

Morgan Freeman is there as - no really? - wise old guy. He gets to say to McAvoy things like "trust your instincts" in a very similar way to Obi-Wan Kenobi advising "use the force" or one of Harry Potter's profs saying "see me after class".

Freeman is the leader of a secret and ancient guild of ethical assassins, who do a spot of fabric manufacturing on the side. They take their kill orders from a loom which produces a hitlist in its random stitches.

The weft of the wicked it weaves, though, has faltered in some way.

Wesley is roped in to be trained up and set after the man who killed his father, the guild's best hitman until he was killed by a rogue colleague.

And so, having survived the  brutish boot camp, off goes Wesley with his new-found lethal abilities, feeling truly alive by having embraced his hidden killer instinct. Which is a fairly dubious philosophy. Though at least it's an action movie with one.

But unlike, say, the transformation of

The Matrix

's Neo, this still can't quite marry the story of Wesley's new lease on life to all the death and destruction it delivers - hey look, exploding rodent suicide bombers! - in so much outlandish style. It's intriguing, exhausting and quickly forgotten.

Russell Baillie

Cast:

James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman

Director:

Timur Bekmambetov

Rating:

R16 (violence, offensive language)

Running time:

110 mins

Screening:

SkyCity, Berkeley, Hoyts