This is Wanted, the latest blockbuster flick to be based on a comic book - and it shows.

James MacAvoy stars as Wesley Gibson, an apathetic cubicle-dweller, bullied by his boss and cuckolded by his best friend. He spends his days popping pills for his panic attacks and conducting fruitless vanity searches on Google.

His life is changed forever when he meets Fox (Angelina Jolie), a sultry mystery woman who tells him the father he never knew was part of a secret society of assassins called 'the Fraternity' and has just been murdered by a rogue operator.

From there it's a fairly predictable collection of cliches - the scene where the young recruit is put to the test and proves he has a gift, the training montages, the moment where he finds his destiny, and the giant plot twist that turns everything upside down. . . all the boxes are ticked.

Critics around the world have noted the striking similarities with The Matrix - the nerdy anti-hero, taken under the wing of a cool gun-toting babe and brought to a secret society who think he's the one who can save them, and who know the secret to firing bullets round corners (yes, really).

The thing is, The Matrix worked because it was set in a different world, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi future. Wanted isn't. So when some of the most improbable action scenes you've ever witnessed occur in a contemporary setting, the experience can be jarring.

Don't get me wrong, the action sequences are spectacular. Some of them are just so out there I was scoffing instead of spellbound.

But between the car smashes, bloody fistfights and exploding there are some darkly funny moments, stylishly delivered by Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov.

MacAvoy is convincing as the slacker-turned-superkiller, Jolie is well cast as the sexy assassin with a steely core and Morgan Freeman as Sloan, the head of 'The Fraternity' is his usual enigmatic self.

Wanted is a very entertaining action film. Its only problems occur when it tries to be something it's not - clever. The twist is obvious a mile away and where it aims to be philosophical, it just looks pretentious.

But if you're after a movie with plenty of guns, gore and a hot girl, it won't disappoint. Just don't expect to take it as seriously as it takes itself.