Hanna (2011)

I Just Missed Your Heart

Still getting my delayed review requests out of the way, this time with one from my sister, I think. And if it was my sister, this time it wasn’t a painful chick flick like Sex and the City and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. This time she requested a vaguely artsy action flick, so I was more than happy to oblige. The movie is Hanna, directed by Joe Wright, and starring Saoirse Ronan (whose name I have no idea how to pronounce), Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng, Jessica Barden, Tom Hollander, and Michelle Dockery.

Hanna Heller (Saoirse Ronan) is a 16-year-old girl who lives with her father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana), in a solitary cabin in the middle of the wilderness of Finland. They live a perfectly normal life besides the small exception that he’s been grooming her to be an assassin since her youth. Erik’s plan is to send her after a CIA officer, Marissa Weigler (Cate Blanchett), to have Hanna kill her for killing Hanna’s momma. When Hanna is ready, she activates a transmitter that let’s Weigler know where they are, then Erik and Hanna split up, leaving Hanna with only her training, an address for them to meet up at later, and a made up backstory. The CIA take Hanna into custody and Weigler sends in a double (Michelle Dockery) to speak with Hanna. Hanna kills the double and then ass kicks her way out of the facility. As she makes her way towards her father, she stows away with, and later befriends, a wacky progressive family of mom Rachel (Olivia Williams), dad Sebastian (Jason Flemyng), daughter Sophie (Jessica Barden), and son … what’s-his-name. Hanna starts learning about the world her father hid from her while making her way back to meet him. Shortly after the movie ends, Hanna realizes that there are more kids like her, setting up the sequel, Hanna and her Sisters. …That may not be true…

I had sort of expected I’d like this movie when going into it. I like a good action movie, even if they’re dumb. And this one didn’t even seem dumb. But I completely forgot about the movie when it was in the theaters and had even seen it in RedBox a few times but didn’t feel like checking it out, so it was a good thing that I was inspired to watch it by my sister’s request. After watching it, I would say it’s a solid movie with some good action but completely forgettable. Almost immediately after watching the movie, I was having a hard time remembering what happened. But I did like the story. It’s like Hitman if 47 was a 16 year old, genetically engineered girl and not Olyphantastic. And watching her try to understand modern technology and society was pretty interesting as well. The fight scenes were one of the best parts. Most of the time it was Hanna whooping ass on guys that are much bigger and older than her, and once or twice it was Eric Bana whooping ass on people of roughly equal age and height. These fight scenes were pretty well choreographed and great fun to watch. But sadly, the movie made no real impression on me. I’m not entirely sure why it fell short or what it could’ve done to make me love it. I usually have a good concept of what I didn’t like about a movie, but I liked pretty much everything about this movie but I left it with a thoroughly “meh” feeling.

The performances in this movie were all very good as well. Though I resent her for my inability to pronounce her name, Saoirse Ronan was very good. She was cold and in control when it was killing time – she whooped ass like a young female Batman – but she was also a cute, innocent young girl when she was introduced to society. She was always interesting to watch and did a great job here. Eric Bana was pretty good too. Nothing phenomenal, but good. Cate Blanchett’s accent was an interesting choice, though. It seems that, if a movie isn’t going to get her an Oscar nomination, she’ll still be in the movie as long as it’ll let her bust out a crazy accent. In Indiana Jones 4, she got to try out her Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle. In Hanna, it’s some kind of fade-in-fade-out Southern accent. It’s there sometimes and gone a little later. I guess it makes sense since she probably is trained on dialects in the CIA, but it’s never explained what head trauma caused her to lose control of the various dialects she knows. Everyone else was fine and didn’t catch my attention. The guy from Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 was in this too (Tom Hollander) as some crazy torturer guy that Blanchett hires, and he turned in a very creepy, weird performance. I guess it’s okay to have a bad character be off-putting, though.

So that’s that. I really have a hard time compiling words about this movie because it didn’t stick in my brain whatsoever. All I know is the story is fine, it looks pretty good, there’s some good fight scenes and some good performances, but it didn’t resonate with me. I don’t think anybody would have a problem watching this movie, but you should probably rent it first, otherwise this seems like the kind of movie you’d watch like 4 times a year because you can’t remember anything about it. Altogether I give this movie “I watched what?” out of “Did she turn out as you hoped?”

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