Hanna

Hanna is one of those movies that while I never got around to seeing in the theaters, but I had an interest in seeing because of the good things I had heard from others. Finally, with it out on dvd I was able to get around to seeint Hanna. It is interest how I had high expectations going n that while this movie was still enjoyable to watch I was a little disappointed because it did not meet the high expectations I had going in. In the end Hanna felt like it was trying to be a female lead version of the Jason Bourne movies, but did not have as much action or as strong of a story. It was another of those secret government programs gone wrong with the agency trying to cover their own tracks. i think it would have met expectations better had I not heard so many great things about the movie beforehand.

Saoirse Ronan in the role of Hanna did a great job and was able to do a pretty good job at carrying this movie. I believe this is the first film I have seen her in and I think she showed a lot of promise and I expect thtat as she plays in more roles she will only improve and she definitely holds the potential to be a star to be reckoned with in the future. Eric Bana in the role of Hanna's fater does an alright job with the minimal moments he is onscreen. With his role being so minimal and with the movie being a lot about Hanna we do not learn much about him. It would have been nice to have got a little more backstory on his character, because I think that may have helped in the end to see an even stronger reasoning behind everything that goes on within the plot and why it happens. Cate Blanchett in the role of Marissa Weigler, the government agent who is now trying to cver up everything, by hunting down Hanna in particular and eliminating her. Blanchett has a keen ability to play any role whether she is a character we root for or in the role of the villian she has a great abiltity to bring out the essece of the role. The rest of the supporting cast all do admirable jobs at really playing to their own roles and do not overtake the scenes they are involved in.

The story line is where I felt Hanna faltered. The story for Hanna had a very slow start as it sets everything up in why Hanna has been raised to basically be an assassin and then why she is sent out into the world by her father to kill Agent Weigler, the CIA agent who killed her mother. Hanna at this point turns into a chase movie as she is tracked through Europe. It is at this point about 45 minutes into the movie when she encounters the wider world where the story begins to go off tack and seems to lose its steam. The innocence that Hanna has with the modern world and the fascination at first she has with a lot of these amenities works at first. however, Wright's direction gets lost as he overkills this fascination. The story only got more muddled and lost with the English hippy family that Hanna ends up hitching a ride with. While they were meant to help show the contrast between the loneliness Hann has felt with that of a family it just did not work because, it only ended up take the story further off course. This change gives the movie a moe away from being an action movie to almost this faux art feel, particularly with the slow motion flamenco dancing scene. while this is trying to show off this sheltered, innocence she had from growing up, I felt it did not work simply because the way the story built was that she was a child that was brought up to be this killing machine, in the end she does not do much killing.

The action sequences in Hanna work throughout the movie and had they kept the focus of the story in sequence with the action this movie would have worked a lot better. I loved how the action was worked in such a way that I did not feel overwhelmed by the action. The action while it did work it would have made a huge difference to have thrown in even more action and even some longer sequences. To go along with the action the musical score that flows throughout Hanna works very well. I feel that the musical score needs to be there, but with a movie like this it should not overpower the scenes, and that is one thing that Hanna does really well.

Hanna is a movie that I ended up going into with too high of expectations and in the end the movie lacked some aspects. While I feel that the concept and story world at the start, the final execution lacked greatly. The actiong was strong and I was surpresed at how well Saoirse Ronan handled the lead role. I am giving Hanna two and three quarter buckets of popcorn out of five. Hanna is a movie that I will not add to the collection it is one I would say is worth the cost to rent.

-The Movie Man-