Honestly, the mid-2000s were a fever dream for action cinema. We had the gritty realism of Bourne on one side and the slow-motion "bullet time" hangover of The Matrix on the other. Then, in 2008, Timur Bekmambetov dropped Wanted with Angelina Jolie, and suddenly everyone was trying to figure out if physics actually allowed you to bend a bullet around a fat guy to hit a target. Spoiler: It doesn't. But man, did it look cool.
It’s been almost two decades. People are still searching for news about a sequel that probably isn’t coming, or they’re re-watching that pharmacy shootout on YouTube for the fiftieth time. Why does this movie stick? It isn’t just the "loom of fate" or James McAvoy screaming with a keyboard key stuck in his teeth. It’s the Fox.
Angelina Jolie Was the Secret Sauce
Let’s be real. If you take Jolie out of this movie, it’s just a weird flick about a guy with anxiety who joins a cult of weavers. She brought a specific kind of "lethal elegance" that was her trademark back then. Think Mr. & Mrs. Smith but with about 40% more tattoos and 100% more nihilism.
Her character, Fox, wasn’t just a mentor. She was the personification of the film’s "hard-R" attitude. In the original Mark Millar comic, Fox was actually modeled after Halle Berry, but Jolie made the role her own by leaning into a quiet, almost robotic devotion to the Code. When she tells Wesley, "Control your heart rate," she isn't being motherly. She’s giving him a tool to kill better.
The chemistry between her and McAvoy worked because it was so lopsided. He was a jittery mess; she was a statue that occasionally moved at Mach 1. That scene where she cruises a red Dodge Viper through a pharmacy window, scoops him up, and then proceeds to engage in a high-speed gunfight while lying on the hood? Pure cinema. It’s the kind of over-the-top stunt work that CGI-heavy Marvel movies try to replicate now but often miss because they lack that visceral, "holy crap she’s actually doing that" energy.
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The Loom of Fate: Still the Weirdest Plot Point in History
Okay, we have to talk about the loom. In the comics, the Fraternity is basically a group of supervillains who took over the world and erased everyone’s memory of superheroes. It’s dark. It’s cynical.
The movie? It traded the supervillains for a magical sewing machine.
Basically, the Fraternity follows instructions from the "Loom of Fate," which weaves binary code into fabric. These codes are names of people who need to be assassinated to keep the world in balance. "Kill one, save a thousand." It sounds noble until you realize you’re taking life advice from a textile factory.
Why fans still argue about the ending:
- The Big Lie: Sloan (Morgan Freeman) was faking the names to protect himself and the Fraternity.
- Fox’s Choice: When the truth comes out, Fox doesn't just walk away. She realizes her own name is on the list.
- The Single Bullet: In the film’s most iconic (and physics-defying) moment, Fox fires a single bullet that curves in a perfect 360-degree circle, killing every assassin in the room—including herself—to uphold the code.
It’s a brutal ending. Most Hollywood movies of that era would have had the girl turn good and fly off into the sunset with the hero. But Wanted with Angelina Jolie stayed true to its grim roots. She died for a machine that was arguably broken. Talk about commitment to the bit.
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The Sequel That Never Was
Every few years, a "Wanted 2" rumor starts floating around. Usually, it’s a fan-made trailer on YouTube with a thumbnail of Jolie looking suspiciously like she did in Eternals. But let’s look at the facts.
Jolie’s character took a bullet to the head. Usually, that’s a "career-ender" for a character. Bekmambetov once mentioned he had an idea to bring her back—something about a wax bath or a "recovery" process—but it never gained traction.
James McAvoy has moved on to X-Men and Split. Jolie moved into directing and Marvel. Plus, Universal Pictures seems happy letting the film stand as a cult classic. Honestly? It’s better that way. Sometimes a movie is a perfect lightning-in-a-bottle moment. You don't need a multiverse or a legacy sequel to explain why bending bullets is cool.
How Wanted Changed the Action Game
You can see the DNA of this movie in almost every stylized action film that followed. The "gun-fu" in John Wick owes a debt to the way Fox and Wesley moved. The slow-motion "X-ray" shots of bullets piercing bodies? You see that in the Sniper Elite games and countless modern thrillers.
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The movie was a massive hit, raking in over $342 million worldwide on a $75 million budget. It proved that R-rated comic book movies could be profitable long before Deadpool or Logan made it a trend. It was unapologetic about its violence and its weirdness.
What most people get wrong about Fox
A lot of people remember Fox as just the "love interest." She really wasn't. There’s a tiny bit of tension, sure, but she spends 90% of the movie beating the hell out of Wesley to "train" him. She represents the tragic side of the Fraternity—the people so brainwashed by the "greater good" that they’ll literally kill themselves if a piece of cloth tells them to. Jolie played that tragedy perfectly behind a mask of cool.
Actionable Takeaways for Movie Buffs
If you’re planning a re-watch or just want to dive deeper into this specific era of Jolie’s career, here’s what you should do:
- Read the Comic: Seriously. It’s nothing like the movie. It’s much meaner and features a guy made of literal human waste (Shithead). It puts the "heroic" version of the movie into a whole new perspective.
- Check the "Wax Bath" Trivia: The healing vats in the movie were a clever way to explain how these guys survived such brutal training. It’s one of those practical-looking effects that made the world feel lived-in.
- Watch Night Watch: If you like the visual style of Wanted, watch the director's Russian films, Night Watch and Day Watch. That’s where he perfected the "hyper-stylized chaos" that he brought to Hollywood.
Wanted with Angelina Jolie isn't a "deep" movie in the traditional sense. It’s a 110-minute adrenaline shot. It’s loud, it’s gross, and it features some of the best stunt work of the late 2000s. Whether you're there for the curved bullets or just to see Jolie look cool in a leather jacket, it remains a benchmark for how to do a "cool" action movie without taking yourself too seriously.
To get the full experience, track down the Blu-ray or a high-bitrate 4K stream. The orange-and-teal color grading is peak 2008, and the sound design during the train sequence is still a top-tier workout for any home theater system. Just don't try the "bending the bullet" thing at the range. It won't work, and you'll definitely get kicked out.