Wowser. I think this deserves something of the chain of thought experience treatment. I loved director Timur Bekmambetov’s Russian extravaganzas Night and Day Watch and was pretty disappointed when I read he was putting off the next in that series, Twilight Watch to do this instead. But I had to admit, from the trailers this looked pretty visually stunning enough to keep me happy; and as it began, though my kneejerk reaction to a lot of movies like this – that it feels almost painfully like a first-time writer’s movie (I know, it’s based on comics etc, I’m just saying what it feels like whenever I see a complete “nobody” introduced in a movie as though we’re meant to pity him just ‘cos he’s played by James McAvoy, lol) – was quickly swept away by the insane gunplay that genuinely rivals Shoot ‘Em Up for silliness.

In fact, the whole thing could be summarised as that movie meets Miranda with all the visual marvel of Timur Bekmambetov in the mix. There’s a Fight Clubby underdog’s revenginess to the first half hour that I really dug with reservation ‘cos I knew that it wouldn’t last out the movie, and sure enough it doesn’t. Luckily there’s a neat enough story to fill out the rest of the running time. Sure, the “loom of fate” is about the most ridiculous depiction of Fate ever to grace the cultural landscape, LOL … but it pulls itself back together for a slightly surprising finale and a brilliantly stirring end monologue from McAvoy. It must be said it’s the most I’ve liked Angelina Jolie in a movie since Life or Something Like It, too … lots of ‘tude going on with her here Definitely one I will enjoy many times more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 7:30 pm in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews and tagged as action, assassination, cars, fate, guns, knives, mythology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.