Review: Hanna

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Right off the bat there's going to be one thing that divides the audience on 'Hanna', the new action/thriller from director Joe Wright ('Pride & Prejudice', 'Atonement'): how smart of a thriller are you expecting? What even makes a thriller 'smart'? When I think of a 'smart' thriller the first movie that pops into my mind is 'Memento.' 'Memento' is complex and confusing from the beginning, and slowly pieces fall into place and start to make sense. Not to mention the intensity is kept at a fairly good rate throughout the entire film. So, what approach does 'Hanna' take to building/maintaining intensity and establishing the mysterious/complex aspect that is often (if not always) part of 'action thrillers'?

'Hanna' is set up as a sort of chase scenario from the beginning. Once young Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) decides she has received enough training from her father (Eric Bana) and is 'ready' she sets off a beacon that alerts Marissa Viegler (Cate Blanchett), a CIA agent, to the duo's location in the middle of the woods somewhere. Right away, the focus of the film is on why was Erik Heller (Bana) training his daughter to kill Marissa and why does she, in turn, want to kill the two of them? What's more, there's obviously something different about Hanna. Mainly that she's a highly skilled killer who is a CHILD.

Therefore, it's focused on this 'mystery' surrounding Hanna and her association with Heller and Marissa. Obviously, this info is divulged towards the end. Now what about the action and intensity throughout? It's fairly mild, to say the least. The few scenes with any violence, however, is fairly graphic. One in particular which features Heller going up against like 4 (I think) guys is pretty cool and well choreographed. Other than that, there's a good amount of running. So this is definitely not an 'explosive' action movie and dispenses violence in small doses, but that means they pack more of a punch when they do occur. Unlike action movies from eras like the 80's, today it's all about how you control the amount and level of violence and action. The soundtrack (by The Chemical Brothers) is...interesting. It sets a weird tone for many scenes but then again, the premise of the movie is sort of weird. I thought the soundtrack was one of the best things about it.

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So the action, while sparse, makes a point. Now the intensity. It didn't build that well. The unveiling of the 'mystery' at the end isn't that powerful and is so brief it doesn't really communicate how this information sinks in for Hanna. I almost feel like this story deserves more than just one movie. The similarity between Hanna's story and a fairytale is obvious and interesting. Yet, we're given such a brief history to the characters everything seems hurriedly wrapped up at the end. That isn't to say the acting isn't good. Blanchett makes for a fine villain, Bana is always a cool action hero, and Ronan is quickly proving she can handle a lot of different roles. Emotionally, the characters make sense and communicate well to the audience, but we as the audience don't have enough of an understanding of their history to connect as well. It's a lot to pack into one movie even though it's only 1 hour and 50 minutes.

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One particular beef I had with it was the German bad guys. I know they were trying to go for some creepy, evil guys but a blonde German (Tom Hollander) who wears short shorts and owns some strip bar in Morocco and has two henchmen who look like Russian meth addicts is a bit much. I'm OK with these characters not having any background whatsoever and just happen to be evil friends of Marissa's in Morocco where Hanna is, but good grief! Pick some guys who don't make me laugh!

The thing that saves this movie is that it takes itself seriously, and it pulls it off. The premise seems silly when you watch the trailers for 'Hanna', but the darkness they give it destroys these notions. A couple of scenes have some violence and tones that make for some semi-disturbing fair for a PG-13 rating. It probably seems more disturbing precisely because I wasn't expecting it to be like it was. This is most likely thanks to 'Hanna' being director Joe Wright's first experiment in the action genre. 'Atonement' was a tragic story that was disturbing and fairly dark. Wright's comfortableness with making a dark story shines through here and makes 'Hanna' a lot better for it and gives me hope for what action movies he might produce in the future.

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Still, I wish there was a prequel to this movie! These all seem like cool characters! But we just don't get enough of them to make it feel like a full, satisfying experience. It's 'smart' enough in it's own right, but people looking for something as complex and intriguing as say one of the Bourne movies or 'Memento' will be disappointed. But, I'd say it's still a surprisingly fun time at the movies, and a good take on the revenge tale. Revenge is different when the person doing the 'revenging' doesn't exactly know why she's killing everyone? If that makes sense. Anyway, I'd say this is definitely one of the better movies in theaters right now alongside of 'Source Code.' So please oh PLEASE don't give 'Hop', 'Arthur', or 'Insidious' more of your hard-earned money!