Some things about the summer movie season are as predictable as ... well, the summer movie season.

There will always be movies based on comic books — like "Wanted." There will always be movies worked on by five writers — like "Wanted." There will be movies starring Angelina Jolie cast as a kind of gun-wielding fashion model — like "Wanted." And action thrillers with body counts that rise faster than the national debt clock — like "Wanted."

So what's different about "Wanted" and its relationship to the very season that makes Hollywood the happiest? Among other things, it's directed by a Russian horror stylist; it stars a Scotsman whose biggest films have been the quasi-art-house hits "The Last King of Scotland" and "Atonement." And it features, in the role of uber-villain, a German best known for playing Nazis or the pope.

"I was really insecure when they hired me," said Thomas Kretschmann, the East German-born actor whose parts have included an officer of the Third Reich in "The Pianist" and the title character in the TV movie "Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II." "Angelina does it all — give her a weapon, and she knows what to do. Me, it was, 'When can I start weapons training? Please!!!"'

For all his firearms phobia, it's Kretschmann who kicks things off, when his character, Cross, murders Mr. X (David O'Hara), and we discover that the recently deceased had a son, Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), who is a miserable, cuckolded accountant. And yet ... he carries the latent genetic material to make him the world's greatest assassin. Who can help him realize his potential? The mysterious Sloan (Morgan Freeman), Fox (Jolie) and a team of trainers who nearly kill Wesley, in preparing him to kill others.

"That they were willing to cast me meant they were willing to do things totally differently," said the Glasgow-born McAvoy. "And I thoroughly enjoyed it. When I read the script, I was impressed, but I wasn't entirely sold. But then I saw his other films. He's so different, so weird."

"He" is director Timur Bekmambetov, Soviet-born and one of the leading explorers of the outskirts of supernatural cinema. His double-barreled vampire thrillers "Night Watch" and "Day Watch" opened all-new veins of visual mayhem en route to box-office success.

For all the creative angles and counterintuitive characteristics of "Wanted," the big question remains ... Ms. Jolie. "She's chilled out, a nice woman," McAvoy said. "She doesn't take it all too seriously. You know, we're not changing people's lives with a movie like this, and if you can't have fun on the set of something like 'Wanted,' then someone else should probably be doing it."

Kretschmann echoed his "Wanted" colleague. "You come on set, you've seen her all over the place, but it takes about 30 seconds to get over any intimidation. She makes it that way. She's easygoing, but she's a strong woman. I like strong women.

"She knows what she's after," he added. "And she goes for the kill."