Rating: 4 1/2 Shurikens
Saoirse Ronan stars as Hanna, a girl of 16 who has been living in the frozen North with her father, a man who is a former CIA agent. Hanna is a special girl, not your average teenager. She is the product of a government program that was attempting to create a super soldier.
Eric Bana, who starred as Bruce Banner in the Ang Lee Hulk movie, turns in an impressive action part as good as any with Matt Damon or Liam Neeson. As a man named Erik, he has been keeping Hanna in isolation and safety all her life, teaching her to fight and speak at least five languages a well as giving her an excellent home school education.
A particular woman agent who goes by the name of Marissa, played by Cate Blanchett, is interested in Hanna with malevolent intentions. Ms. Blanchett was Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and also in the Hobbit movies yet to be made. She has had many noteworthy parts, but none as important as Galadriel, in my opinion. She was in Robin Hood as Maid Marion with Russell Crowe, and had parts in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the most recent Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. She makes a convincing female bad guy, who will bend any rule and work outside the system.
At the start of the movie, Hanna starts to get curious about where she came from, so Erik lets her have a way to civilization. Hanna already knows that Marissa wants her, and is ready to meet her. Hanna is picked up by the American military and taken to a secret base in Morocco, which she soon escapes from. She is expecting to meet her father in Berlin, and her travels take her through Spain and Germany, while being pursued by some of Marissa's underlings. She makes some friends along the way, and has some interesting experiences. I don't like to say too much, because it might spoil a pretty awesome movie.
The premise of a super-human, advanced by genetic engineering, is nothing new. That fact does no detriment to Hanna, which is a top-notch action flick with a lot of good fight scenes and a very high body count. It does break new ground in that the hero is female, and so is the main villain. This movie is good an long, but not at all boring. One thing I tend to dislike about action movies is the excessive use of camera angles which attempt to get 8 or 9 points of view in 3 seconds. This movie is not guilty of that. It is fast paced in places, but relaxed in others. It gives the audience a chance to reflect, unlike some action movies which are non-stop action from beginning to end, and exhausting to watch.
Hanna is a great action movie. It is also good and long. Perhaps the body count is a little high, but some death is needed for the story. There are couple of good scenes which are almost educational, one in Morocco, the other a lengthy Flamenco dance. It gets four and a half Shurikens for a good story, a good cast, and really excellent action scenes.
Saoirse Ronan stars as Hanna, a girl of 16 who has been living in the frozen North with her father, a man who is a former CIA agent. Hanna is a special girl, not your average teenager. She is the product of a government program that was attempting to create a super soldier.
Eric Bana, who starred as Bruce Banner in the Ang Lee Hulk movie, turns in an impressive action part as good as any with Matt Damon or Liam Neeson. As a man named Erik, he has been keeping Hanna in isolation and safety all her life, teaching her to fight and speak at least five languages a well as giving her an excellent home school education.
A particular woman agent who goes by the name of Marissa, played by Cate Blanchett, is interested in Hanna with malevolent intentions. Ms. Blanchett was Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and also in the Hobbit movies yet to be made. She has had many noteworthy parts, but none as important as Galadriel, in my opinion. She was in Robin Hood as Maid Marion with Russell Crowe, and had parts in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the most recent Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. She makes a convincing female bad guy, who will bend any rule and work outside the system.
At the start of the movie, Hanna starts to get curious about where she came from, so Erik lets her have a way to civilization. Hanna already knows that Marissa wants her, and is ready to meet her. Hanna is picked up by the American military and taken to a secret base in Morocco, which she soon escapes from. She is expecting to meet her father in Berlin, and her travels take her through Spain and Germany, while being pursued by some of Marissa's underlings. She makes some friends along the way, and has some interesting experiences. I don't like to say too much, because it might spoil a pretty awesome movie.
The premise of a super-human, advanced by genetic engineering, is nothing new. That fact does no detriment to Hanna, which is a top-notch action flick with a lot of good fight scenes and a very high body count. It does break new ground in that the hero is female, and so is the main villain. This movie is good an long, but not at all boring. One thing I tend to dislike about action movies is the excessive use of camera angles which attempt to get 8 or 9 points of view in 3 seconds. This movie is not guilty of that. It is fast paced in places, but relaxed in others. It gives the audience a chance to reflect, unlike some action movies which are non-stop action from beginning to end, and exhausting to watch.
Hanna is a great action movie. It is also good and long. Perhaps the body count is a little high, but some death is needed for the story. There are couple of good scenes which are almost educational, one in Morocco, the other a lengthy Flamenco dance. It gets four and a half Shurikens for a good story, a good cast, and really excellent action scenes.
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