Adapt Or Die
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng
Director: Joe Wright
2011 | 111 Minutes | PG-13
“I just missed your heart.” – Hanna
Hanna is another movie that had a good amount of hype behind it, that just didn’t click for me. I am getting to the point that I just don’t trust word of mouth on movies, other than from a very select group of people.
Sixteen-year-old Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) was raised by her father to be a perfect assassin. Hanna begins a mission across Europe with ruthless intelligence agents in pursuit.
Hanna, the movie, is just WAY too artsy for an action flick. It feels like a film school project to make an art house action movie. I probably should have expected that from a Focus Features production though.
The story itself is mildly interesting but is SUPER thin. Once Hanna’s upbringing is introduced, the rest of the movie is just an unexplained chase. On top of that there are huge gaps in action. You can’t have a big chase movie that stops dead every few minutes.
I’ve never been to Europe so I don’t really know what the scenery and surroundings are like in the average European town. It seems like the director was purposely seeking out locations that not only throw Hanna into a strange new world for her but also a strange world for the viewer. For example, the creepy weirdo magicians and gypsy families and their bizarre homes.
The obnoxious soundtrack is just a mix of hipster beats. Yeah, I know it’s The Chemical Brothers. Not my thing.
The one positive I will give the movie is that, when Hanna does fight, she does it well. It looks good. That’s really the only good thing I can say about this movie though.
I’m not a fan of art for art’s sake and in case you can’t tell by now I am not really a fan of Hanna. I’m not sure taking a next to nothing script and painting it with “creative” camera angles and pasting funky beats over the top makes this a masterpiece of film making. I know art is subjective and all but sometimes (oftentimes) crap art is still just crap art. But then…What do I know. Most people think I have horrible taste in movies.
Action Movie Fanatix 