he debut American feature by Russian maverick Timur Bekmambetov ("Night Watch" and its 2006 sequel, "Day Watch") is the ideal, mindless summer thrill. Keep in mind, this violent comic-book adaptation, starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, is one you can never take too seriously.

Based on the graphic novels by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, "Wanted" follows the unlikely transformation of Wesley Gibson (the versatile James McAvoy) from miserable cubicle dweller to master assassin. When we first meet him, Gibson, like Edward Norton's protagonist in Fight Club, is a boring white-collar employee who likes IKEA furniture, and is bullied by his boss.

He is prone to anxiety attacks, which he pops pills to keep these to a minimum. He lives in a crappy apartment, and his girlfriend Cathy (Kristen Hager) is screwing his best friend Barry (Chris Pratt). According to Gibson's own voiceover, he's an "insignificant asshole" who is "finding it hard to care about anything these days. In fact the only thing that I do care about is not caring about anything."

What doesn't generally happen to men like Gibson is the appearance of Angelina Jolie, whose name aptly happens to be Fox, who tells him his father was part of the Fraternity, a cell of super-assassins; apparently, Gibson was abandoned nearly at birth by his father, and now Fox is here to announce that it’s time to follow in his footsteps and assume the mantle.

If you're looking for memorable dialogue and gripping story, however, then you better set your sights somewhere else.

It happens one evening when Wesley stops by the drugstore for one of his frequent refills, he finds himself being rescued from a vicious gunfight by the seductive Fox. She takes him for a ride - dodging midtown traffic and high speed enemy bullets - to the fortress-like headquarters of the Fraternity, where a nattily attired Morgan Freeman, as the org's boss, Sloan, explains how the 1,000-year-old institution takes it upon itself to eliminate people based on a binary code hidden in the fibers of a giant weaver’s loom.

It’s called the Loom of Fate. More like a bloody underground boot camp, where Gibson immediately undergoes training - repeatedly getting the living crap beaten out of him in brutally sadistic ways. For this moment onward, the reluctant rookie hit-man proceeds to be literally whipped into shape by butt kicker, man-slugging Fox.

This over-the-top, ultraviolent, hyperkinetic action thriller pretty much has it all. Bekmambetov, who started off in the ad industry, knows how to get a story going without bothering with preliminaries: set-pieces build in intensity, and each sequence is filled with stunning stunts (watch for the car chase scene of the year) and imaginative gimmicks. Not as dark as its source material, screenwriters Michael Brandt, Derek Haas and Chris Morgan maintain an adequately energized - but mind-boggling - outrageousness.

McAvoy (who is back with a solid American accent) gives a shrewdly calibrated performance as the morally conflicted weakling aching to bust loose. And our little Angelina? Well, the tattooed seductress's svelte frame slinks across the screen with an alluring animalism magnified by the steamy twinkle in her eyes. What more do you want?

Slam-bang action entertainment indeed. But, if you're looking for memorable dialogue and a gripping story, then you better set your sights somewhere else.