It's hard to believe because you would think that fate or the loom would be commissioning the assassins to rid the world of the countless criminals on the streets, rather than taking out random, high-profile targets in ridiculously complicated, acrobatic assassinations. Why must the assassins shoot a guy from atop a speeding train and bend the bullet's trajectory? Oh wait, no questions, I forgot.

If you check your brain at the door—something I advise against, since it only encourages the big studios to continue making seizure-inducing movies with weak and/or morally bankrupt stories—you can unquestioningly enjoy the high-intensity car chases, impossibly brutal fight scenes, the flying bullets with minds of their own, and a few unnecessary action scenes of slo-mo coolness. Because the film has been promoted since fall last year and I've seen the trailers so many times, some of the better action scenes were not as fun when I finally saw them within the context of the film. But nonetheless, there are enough thrills to keep you watching.

Even still, to me at least, the most intriguing element of Wanted is the interesting pseudo-commentary on religion and its followers. Whether it was intended or not, the end result looks like an inverted gospel with the traitor as savior, exposing lies and hypocrisy. And that's probably giving it too much credit.

As the story wraps up, you find that there isn't any good news for anyone, no salvation, no real justice. Wesley decides to fulfill the movie's tagline and choose his own destiny. A destiny that is built upon the acceptance (and then denial) of the apparent truth of fate's whims and the word of the loom; but Wesley is in complete control. So there is a sadness amidst the carpe diem message where he triumphantly and vengefully chooses a way that seems right to him, as a line from an old Proverb says. Wanted forgets the second half: "but its end is the way that leads to death."

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