Anyone who reads my reviews will know that I have never wrote a scathing review about a movie and that (most times), I end the post with “I recommend you see this film”. So, I assume you must think that I am a soft reviewer? That I am incapable of writing a review on a bad movie?
By the end of this post, you will have to re-evaluate your opinion on me.
“Hanna” follows the eponymous main character on her mission across Europe to kill a CIA agent called Marissa. After growing up in the middle of nowhere, with her father as her only source of companionship and having absolutely no childhood as a result of her brutal training regime (becoming the perfect assassin doesn’t come naturally you know), adapting from living in seclusion to becoming surrounded by electrical appliances and people is no easy task for Hanna. The rest of the film is balanced between Hanna attempting to adapt to the modern world and cement friendships and the thrilling action sequences that remind us that in Hanna’s world, danger is around every corner.
To be honest, I could have stopped after the first sentence on the synopsis and you would have been able to understand precisely what “Hanna” was about. That’s it. In terms of plot, there is very little for the audience to feed upon, or think about. The characters are so one-dimensional and ruthless that it becomes incredibly difficult for the audience to sympathise with them. The murders that they perform go by without an explanation to why they killed their victims. Unless I’ve missed something, the person that Marissa shot seemed to be killed for the sole reason of giving Hanna a reason to want to murder her. Characters were brought in to show how incompetent Hanna is when it comes to social interaction, and were murdered or were not heard from soon after. They were given no back story. Their characters had very little purpose other than helping Hanna or as a comic relief. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, It’s pointless characters.
The acting was good. The characters they were given were so impersonal and out of tune with reality, all they had to do was become very in-emotive and they would be able to nail their roles. My friend came out of the screening and said “I only liked Rachel”. Rachel embodies every single teenager who has ever appeared on “My Sweet 16”. She talks about boys, clothes, plastic surgery and uses the term “vomorama”. There is something far wrong if this is the only character you can relate to, or like. Cate Blanchett and Jason Flemyng did do a great job with two villainous characters, a commendable effort in the midst of the forgettable roles for a cast that are capable of so much more.
The only thing I actually liked about this movie was Joe Wright’s direction. It was a unique perspective that is reminiscent of Tarintino’s “Kill Bill” and would happily fit in with the art house scene if given half a chance. The viewer was quickly thrown in Hanna’s mind, and through a series of quick cuts, clever sound editing and dizzying camera rotations, we began to appreciate her confusion of the modern world and it’s noise. A sense of paranoia was subtly instilled throughout the film, through location shots (When Erik moving towards the train station, reminders that he was being watched were literally graffiti-d all over the walls). The direction reminded me greatly of Tom Tykwer’s work on “Run Lola Run”. That’s a compliment to Wright.
If you do see “Hanna”, expect long, dragging scenes that add very little to your appreciation of the film as a whole and a story about one girl attempting to adapt to the big bad world instead of the action flick that the trailers had you prepared for.
Do yourself a favour, give it a miss.
