That Timur Bekmambetov’s amped-up action flick “Wanted” makes absolutely no sense is entirely irrelevant. Your brain, in fact, can take a two-hour hiatus. But your adrenal glands will be working overtime.

Our tour guide through the madness is beaten-down office drone Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy). Nothing interesting ever happens in his life - until the night he meets Angelina Jolie’s aptly named Fox.

Fox, it turns out, belongs to a centuries-old fraternity of assassins, and she and her boss (Morgan Freeman) claim Wesley’s father did, too. Now, they announce, it’s time for him to join the club.

Obviously, he’s a little put off by this command. But you don’t argue with hit men, and it’s not like he’s got anything better going on. So after a rigorous training program that nearly kills him, he discovers that he is, in fact, good at something. And that something is shooting a bullet through any brain he desires.

From head-spinning car chases to a naked Jolie, Bekmambetov - best known for the Russian blockbuster “Night Watch” - keeps his audience on visual overload. Really, he doesn’t so much direct the movie as edit it into submission. There’s barely a frame that doesn’t look stretched, smashed or otherwise harassed. Imagine “The Matrix” on speed, and you’re halfway there.

You could fairly call “Wanted,” which is loosely based on a graphic novel of the same name, too long, too dumb and too outlandish. Or you could keep stuffing your face with popcorn and appreciate Bekmambetov’s determination to give us our money’s worth. And he does get points for casting the talented McAvoy, who deserves a chance to break out after supporting bigger stars in movies like “Atonement.”

Also wise was the decision to balance McAvoy’s everyman meekness with Jolie’s intimidating cool. Whether speeding through tunnels or outracing a train, she meets every escalating threat with an imperious stare and a massive gun. Our era could use a few more iconic action heroes, and right now, no one fits the bill better than she does.

 

Good or bad, actor Harrison Ford will not be reading reviews of the new Indiana Jones movie, which divided the Cannes film festival’s notoriously picky critics.

“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” had its world premiere at the annual festival on Sunday, and initial reaction was positive.

But with a little more time to reflect on a blockbuster that cost an estimated $185 million to make, reviews have become decidedly more mixed.

“I suppose it would be interesting, but I don’t read reviews,” Ford told Reuters in an interview to promote the film.

“I don’t want to believe the bad stuff and I don’t want to believe the good stuff. It doesn’t really matter,” added Ford, who reprises probably his most famous on-screen role as the whip-wielding archaeologist at the age of 65.

In Crystal Skull, he teams up again with Karen Allen, his co-star from the first Indiana Jones film in 1981.

They are up against an evil KGB agent, played by Australia’s Cate Blanchett, who is seeking to harness the power of a skull which leads them on a high-octane adventure ending with a dramatic encounter with extra terrestrials.

Reviews appearing on the Internet within minutes of the end of the press screening in Cannes were largely positive.

Several, though, have since questioned the wisdom of resurrecting a successful franchise which last hit the screens 19 years ago.

 

Here’s a suggestion to Danny Ocean: If you need a con artist for your team, stay away from Ben Campbell and his friends.

Danny Ocean is the brains of the Ocean’s 11, 12, and 13 heists. Ben Campbell is the brains of 21. There are, you should pardon the expression, oceans of difference between them. 21 is based on a true story about a group of college students who set out to get rich by playing blackjack. In this case, “based on a true story” means that someone among screenwriters Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb and director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) read Ben Mezrich’s book, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, then managed to turn it into a forgettable potboiler. I haven’t read Mezrich’s book, but just the thought of winning a bundle at Vegas is fascinating. It must have taken considerable work to turn the movie into a snoozer. As played by Jim Sturgess, Ben is a brilliant student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has been accepted into Harvard Medical School. But it takes $300,000 to attend Harvard, and Ben works as an assistant manager at a haberdashery. He’s desperate for money. Ben’s brilliance comes to the attention of professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), who has a neat little side business. He has developed a system for counting cards at the blackjack tables of Las Vegas, and he has trained a group of students to win bundles of money. The problem is, one of his key players has left this lucrative sideline for a job with Google, and Micky needs a new body. Ben’s his boy. After some initial protests (and enticement by the team “hottie”), Ben joins the gang, and pretty soon the money starts rolling in. Up to this point, the movie’s reasonably interesting, despite some obvious questions the moviemakers choose to ignore. (Harvard doesn’t offer student loans? No other medical schools are interested in helping out a summa cum laude graduate of M.I.T.?) But things really get dumb when the gang gets to Vegas. Mickey insists there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing, yet he gives his crew fake IDs, has them wear disguises, and tells them to stay away from each other. And no one asks why (Duh No. 1). And if they’re not supposed to be seen together, why do they share a suite? (Duh No. 2). And why do they keep going back to the same casino? (Duh No. 3). What Mickey has failed to tell them is that although card-counting isn’t illegal, it’s forbidden by the casinos, which train staff members to watch for counters and ban them from the premises (or take them to the boiler room for a beating, according to the filmmakers). In one of the casinos that Mickey and his crew have targeted, Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), “a loss prevention specialist,” spots Ben & Co. winning a little too much. If there is one big asset in 21, it is cinematographer Russell Carpenter. His camera work give the cards and the chips more personality than the people who, other than Ben and the hottie Jill (Kate Bosworth), have been turned into one big stereotype. Sturgess, who was in Across the Universe and The Other Boleyn Girl, makes a bland hero, sort of in the Andrew McCarthy mold. And because the filmmakers give him no common sense, it’s hard to believe he’s a genius. Case in point: Ben keeps his winnings in the ceiling of his dorm room. OK, I can understand why he doesn’t want to risk questions with a savings account, but why not use a safe deposit box? Oh, because it won’t help the plot. Bosworth, who starred with Spacey in Beyond the Sea and was in Superman Returns, is forgettable, and Spacey, who won Oscars for The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, is coasting. 21 starts out with a reasonable amount of promise, sort of an Ocean’s 11 for the college set. But keep looking, Danny Ocean. These geniuses barely get a passing grade.

 

The latest disappointing Hollywood redo of a J-horror film — in this case, Thai — “Shutter” demonstrates that the subject of spirit photography, which has been a point of speculation for more than a century, might have passed its peak.

After all, once we’ve seen ghosts emerge via videotapes, cell phones, computers and nearly every other technological device known to man, seeing them appear through Polaroids feels a bit retro.

The 20th Century Fox film opened at No. 3 at the North American box office with weak sales of $10.7 million.

In an homage to its Asian roots, the film is set largely in Tokyo, where star photographer Ben (Joshua Jackson) and his new wife, Jane (Rachel Taylor), have arrived for his latest high-profile shoot. Unfortunately, they’ve barely gotten to town before they have a serious car crash, caused by a mysterious woman on a dark, snowy roadway who promptly disappears.

Pretty soon the same apparition — apparently seeking revenge — shows up repeatedly in Ben’s photographs, wreaking no small havoc with his career. Things get even more serious when Bruno (David Denman), Ben’s boss, and Adam (John Hensley), a sleazy models’ agent, fall victim to mysterious attacks. The increasingly agitated Jane attempts to discover the identity of the malevolent ghost, but she doesn’t like what she ultimately finds.

Strictly perfunctory in its concept and execution, “Shutter” presents the usual series of spooky images of a deadpan female ghost showing up at odd times and moving in the slow, jerky movements that are de rigueur for the genre. Genuine scares are few and far between, and the climactic explanation for the ghost’s appearances comes as something less than a revelation. It must be said, however, that the final screen image, taking place in a mental institution, is subtly unsettling.

Jackson displays his usual likable screen presence, and Taylor manages to look absolutely gorgeous even while terrified. But despite their respectable efforts, “Shutter,” like the similar remakes that have preceded it, demonstrates that Hollywood might have gone to the J-horror well a little too often.

 

In the new historical melodrama “The Other Boleyn Girl,” which opens Friday, Natalie Portman plays Anne Boleyn, the woman who would become the second of six wives of King Henry VIII (Eric Bana), only to be beheaded. Scarlett Johansson plays Mary Boleyn, Anne’s sister, and rival for the hand and the bed of the handsome Henry.

What would happen if we pit Portman and Johansson together as rivals? Who would win that competition? They are popular, highly in-demand young women in their 20s who mix major studio films with small, independent fare. They have both made successful transitions from child actress to adult, received major award nominations and been the muses of legendary directors. Neither has shied away from nudity. But who is actually the better actress? Or are they on an even playing field?