What, you may well ask, does a jerk of the 21st century have to do with a group of ancient textile manufacturers? It’s all very clear in the cosmology of the comic books -- sorry, graphic novels --on which “Wanted” is based, a cosmology invented by authors Mark Millar and J.G. Jones and given a loud, profane and, OK, occasionally very cool reinterpretation here by Russian director Timur Bekmambetov.

Those very cool passages come early on, too, first when Angelina Jolie makes a fabulously subtle entrance as a sexy assassin named Fox, and then, after a tense shootout in a drugstore where Wesley is trying to fill a prescription for anti-anxiety medication, in a terrifically staged car chase in the parking lot outside. What is an earth mother and global healer of Jolie’s magnitude doing in a scowling paean to death and destruction? The answer might be that this shrewd actress, who carefully molded her image in the corridors of the United Nations, wants to remind Hollywood of her action roots in such popcorn toss-offs as “Gone in 60 Seconds” and “Lara Croft.”

Still, if there were an Oscar for best use of a lead actress’ tattoos, “Wanted” would be a shoo-in. It’s also long on style, swagger and testosterone; it purveys and partakes in the most visceral pleasures cinema has to offer, from that stunning car chase in which Fox effortlessly scoops Wesley into the passenger seat of her red sports car without slowing down, to a climactic train wreck that, technically speaking, is anything but. Bekmambetov has proven to be a skilled visual imagist in the dark “Night Watch” and “Day Watch” movies, and he once again creates some unforgettable tableaux, especially in the Chicago textile factory that serves as headquarters for a group of hit men (and one Fox) called the Fraternity. This grim group of shooters, who get their orders from a mystical giant loom, answers to a man named Sloan, played by Morgan Freeman in a role that, very late in the movie, calls on his best comic timing.

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