Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) lives alone with her father, Erik (Eric Bana), in a cabin in the woods, located just outside of the Arctic Circle. To say that they don't get out much is a bit of an understatement. Erik has taught Hanna a variety of survival skills, including hunting, trapping, tanning animal hides, and basically everything you would need to live like a 17th century fur trapper.
Hanna is just like him, but with a little less 'stache. |
The rest of the movie has Erik and Hanna splitting up and being hunted across the world. Hanna is initially captured (after killing a few CIA agents) and placed in a ridiculous spy movie underground prison (which she kills her way out of), from where she travels, weaponless and penniless, from Morocco to Germany. Along the way, she encounters a lot of firsts. She witnesses electricity for the first time, hears her first music, sees her first dancing, meets her first family, makes her first friend, and has a first kiss (whose ass she totally kicks). Oh, and she beats the hell out of some bad guys that were sent to find her. There is a lot more to life that what she grew up with, but she will never be able to enjoy it, as long as she's being hunted.
Hanna is definitely an action movie, but what makes it unique is the fact that it is aware of the "real world," the "action movie world," and a world of fairy tales. While I would hesitate to call Hanna a full-on chick flick, this is definitely one of the more complex action movies you will see, and one that takes pleasure in a lot of unexpectedly cute moments.
But it is an action movie, and a good one. Director Joe Wright does a great job shooting the action sequences, especially for a first-time action director. Instead of a lot of close-up shots that are edited together to the point of disorientation, Wright uses a lot of long shots, showing that the actors are the ones performing the action on-screen, which is especially important in convincing the audience that Hanna is actually formidable. There are a lot of fight scenes that purposely aren't edited, so action buffs are treated to extended fight sequences that were filmed in continuous takes. The most notable of these has Eric Bana going all "Hulk smash" on a group of CIA agents in a subway station, and it's pretty sweet.
"Hulk want push on swing!" |
At the very least, Hanna is an entertaining action movie. It's pretty awesome to see a slightly built teenage girl look like she is legitimately beating the crap out of tough-looking guys, even if some of them are wearing suspenders with their skinny jeans. The story is pretty good, at least thematically. There is a twist that isn't terribly surprising and probably should have been left out entirely, but it's played down, so I won't complain too much about it. There is also a fairy tale theme throughout the film, and it may deepen your appreciation for the movie. It didn't work for me, but you might like it. Basically, this movie plays out like a Grimm fairy tale; Blanchett plays the evil queen/witch and Hanna is the innocent and good princess. For most of the movie, this theme is pretty subtle, but when Blanchett walks out of a large fiberglass Big Bad Wolf head, the subtlety has been gone for about ten minutes. I like it when directors and screenwriters try to add layers to movies, and I appreciate the effort here, but it just didn't click for me.
Silencers. Just like in the fairy tales. |
As far as bad-ass kids go, there's always that sadistic murdering kid in Robocop 2. He sold drugs, shot at police officers, and had a questionable relationship with a prostitute.
ReplyDelete...but is he bad-ass, or just a bad kid? I can think of some movies with bad kids (the first Toxic Avenger is a great example), but being bad-ass is a little different, I think.
ReplyDeleteExcellent call, though. I forgot about the prostitute bit. Happy belated Robocop Day!