Remember the scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman’s character overdoses and John Travolta’s character has to administer a shot of adrenaline directly to her heart? That is, roughly speaking, the effect that Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted has on an audience.

Wesley Gibson [James McAvoy] is a cubicle slave with an impressive, but meaningless title, and a boss who takes particular delight in demeaning him. He has a surprisingly good-looking girlfriend and a cheery best friend – who are sleeping with each other. Then, one night when he’s in line at a pharmacy to buy medication for his anxiety attacks, a gorgeous, tattooed goddess of a woman informs him that his father was the greatest assassin in the world; the number two guy killed him the day before and is just… over there!

Wesley, it seems, has inherited his father’s skills, but has been blithely unaware – mistaking his hunter’s/assassin’s traits as anxiety attacks. The goddess is named Fox [Angelina Jolie] and he is to become a member of The Fraternity – a society of assassins headed by the dapper, dignified Sloan [Morgan Freeman]. Of course, he’ll have to be trained – by a host of assassins with names Like The Repairman [Mark Warren] and Gunsmith [Common]. Then he will hunt and kill the man who killed his father.

Based on Mark Millar’s graphic novel of the same name, Wanted seems to be little more than a framework to showcase Bekmambetov’s dexterity as a director. Instead, it turns out to be a showcase for McAvoy’s transformation from wage slave to a man in charge of his own life – and for Fox to discover the real meaning of integrity. At the same time, of course, Bekmambetov does, indeed, throw everything he’s got into action sequence that take the work of people like Louis Leterrier and the Wachowski Brothers and ramp it up to a level so high that the bar is no longer even visible.

Except for a very few scenes, Wanted makes the proverbial bat out of hell look like a tortoise on its back. The fight scenes are agile in ways that combine John Woo and the Shaw Brothers with Peckinpah and the Wachowskis; the chases are well into the land that exists beyond ridiculous, and the gun play is beyond even that.

Bekmambetov hits us so quickly with pans and zooms and smash cuts and dissolves and changes of pace that we go along for the ride – even though the whole thing is as insubstantial as smoke [and we get some of that, too]. This is what summer blockbusters are supposed to be – smart and absurd and gracefully jagged adrenaline delivery systems. On that level, it is superb!

Final Grade: A

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is doomed to be remembered as “that naked break-up movie” though it’s considerably more. For one thing, the naked break-up is a simultaneously funny and poignant scene and Jason Segel’s performance as Peter [the breakee] is staggeringly vulnerable. For another, that vulnerability continues to come into play when Peter tries to get away from it all at the same Hawaiian resort where Sarah [Kristin Bell] is staying with her rock god boyfriend. In turn, Peter’s heartbreak is tempered by Rachel [Mila Kunis], a pretty, intelligent hotel employee who has also had a miserable heartbreak.

Segel‘s script meanders a bit, but those wanderings lead to emotional payoffs that make sense – especially when news that the TV series that stars Sarah, and for which he composes the “dark, ominous tones,” has been cancelled. A comment from Rachel leads Peter to finish his dream project [a rock opera for puppets – about Dracula and his search for True Love], while Aldous’ [the rock god, played by Russell Brand] behavior has Sarah rethinking leaving Peter.

Director Nicholas Stoller keeps the wandering script focused and gets terrific performances from his entire cast. Check out supporting work by the reliable Paul Rudd [as a goofy surfing guru] and Jonah Hill as Aldous’ number one fan. Stoller understands the necessity for an extra beat in a quiet moment and how to set up a gag without being obvious. As a result, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of the best films to come out of the Judd Apatow crude-with-a-heart comedy factory. I may not have laughed as often as the lady behind me, but I did laugh and smile and chuckle enough to recommend Forgetting Sarah Marshall as more than your daily recommended dose of fun.

Final Grade: B+

Definitely, Maybe is a smart, witty, genuinely funny romantic comedy with intelligent plotting, real conversations and not one, but two happy endings – though not necessarily the kind of happy endings that you find in the usual Hollywood romcom.

Will Hayes [Ryan Reynolds] is about to become divorced. To make his day even worse, his ten-year old daughter, Maya [Abigail Breslin], has just experienced her first sex education class and is kind of hung up on the relevant technical terms. How could the despondent Will’s day get any worse? How about by having his rather perceptive daughter see through his attempts to camouflage his pain. When Maya asks how he met her mother, Will tells her the story – changes some names and some facts, just to make it a little more fun for Maya to guess which of the women he married.

Will begins at the beginning, with his college sweetheart, Emily [Elizabeth Banks], a sweet, good-natured blonde who was his college sweetheart. When he went to New York City work on the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign, she stayed behind.

In New York, he meets a vivacious, spontaneous redhead, April [Isla Fisher] and a brunette intellectual, Summer [Rachel Weisz], who takes a crusty old writer as a lover. In between his romantic adventures, we get moments of political commentary – not enough to bore, but enough to make his commitment real [later on in the film, he wonders how Clinton managed to ever get elected – if he can’t define a simple word like “is,” how can he ever hope to handle one of the hard ones, like “truth”].

Throughout the story, Maya interrupts to ask questions or make observations. Breslin makes this seem completely natural, even though Maya is clearly smarter than her dad – or at least more observant. When Maya tells Will, “Trust me, daddy, you’re not happy,” hearts in the audience just break.

Sure, the premise of the movie is similar to the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. And it plies some of the same philosophical ground as a number of other romantic comedies [the idea that timing is especially important in making a relationship work; the idea that the same traits that attract two people may be the same traits that eventually drive them apart]. As an old British playwright once noted, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

What makes Definitely, Maybe stand out is that it deals honestly with the messiness of relationships without ever actually becoming a mess itself. Well, that and some remarkable performances from Ryan Reynolds [who has been remarkable in a host of pretty awful films, so it’s nice to see him being remarkable in a really good one], Abigail Breslin [showing that her Oscar® nomination was not a fluke], Elizabeth Banks [who hasn’t done anything this good since Slither], Rachel Weisz [without whom, I’ll be passing on The Mummy 3] and Isla Fisher [whose energy seems to be unlimited].

The sharp script is equally sharply directed by its writer, Adam Brooks who, with the release of Definite, Maybe can now be forgiven for Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Unlike that film, Definitely, Maybe sparkles like one of those delightfully odd screwball comedies of the forties [like George Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story – though it may fall a wee bit shy of that impressive level of excellence].

Part of the reason the film is smart is that Brooks understands that things/people/relationships sometimes just fall apart for no really big reason – and that a happy ending doesn’t necessarily have be marriage and “happily ever after.” It’s probably not a huge spoiler to say that one of the film’s happy ending is, in fact, Maya herself. I’ll leave to you to see the film for the other one.

Final Grade: A-

One of my favorite films of last year, American Gangster, is coming to DVD on February 19th in a lavish 2 Disk Special Edition Set and we have 10 copies to give away!! We have this new Top Commentator block on the right hand side. The top 5 posters during the contest period - February 6 - Monday 25th will get the DVD. It’s that simple to win this really cool set. You can read my full review Here.

Academy Award® winners Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe team with director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) for an epic story as powerful as it is true. Armed with ruthless, street-wise tactics and a strict sense of honor, crime boss Frank Lucas (Washington) rules Harlem’s chaotic drug underworld. When outcast cop Richie Roberts (Crowe) sets out to bring down Lucas’s multi-million dollar empire, it plunges both men into a legendary confrontation. American Gangster is “a brutal and brilliant film” (Pete Hammond, Maxim) Starring: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Josh Brolin, Ted Levine, Armand Assante, John Ortiz, Common, Tip TI Harris, John Hawkes, RZA, Lymari Nadal, Yul Vazquez, Ruby Dee, Idris Elba, Carla Gugino, Joe Morton Directed by: Ridley Scott

Disc 1

• Run Time: 2 Hours and 38 Minutes
• MPAA Rating: R (Violence, Pervasive Drug Content and Language, Nudity and Sexuality)
• Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (French)
• Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
• Picture: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1)
• Color
  Bonus:
• Commentary with Director Ridley Scott and Writer Steven Zaillian
• Run Time: 2 Hours and 57 Minutes
• MPAA Rating: Not Rated
• Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
• Color

Disc 2: Bonus Disc

• MPAA Rating: Not Rated
• Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
• Color
  Bonus:
• Alternate Opening
• Frank and Eva’s Wedding
• Fallen Empire: Making American Gangster - Tru-Blu: The Real Story
• Fallen Empire: Making American Gangster - Killer Threads: Costumes
• Fallen Empire: Making American Gangster - Crime War: Production
• Fallen Empire: Making American Gangster - Into the Arena: Ali vs. Frazier
• Fallen Empire: Making American Gangster - Rhythm of the Street: Sound, Music and Editing
• Case Files: Script Meeting
• Case Files: Heroin Test Show & Tell
• Case Files: Setting Up the Takedown