Review by Mark Foker.
“I just missed your heart” are the first and last words uttered in this marvellous adventure thriller by Director Joe Wright. See?…you’re interested already.
Hanna is a 16-year old killing machine played with just the right amount of wonderment and naivety by Irish actress Saoirse Ronan.
Hanna has been brought up in the wild woods of North Finland singlehandedly by her widowed Father Erik (Eric Bana) who, as an ex-CIA agent who trains her in martial arts and armed combat, transforms her into the perfect assassin. At the same time her home education all seems to come from encyclopedias and traditional fairy tales. In her secluded life this is all normal as she has never had any physical contact outside of her homeland.
Hanna knows that her training has been leading up to one moment, a moment soon approaching when she will be unleashed into the real world to exact revenge on the ‘wicked witch’ responsible for her Mother’s death.
The Witch in question is Marissa Viegler (Cate Blanchett) a ruthless CIA operative who once worked with Erik and has been obsessively searching for him and his daughter. On completion of Hanna’s mission Erik arranges to rendezvous with her in Berlin at a spooky abandoned fairy tale theme park, very Grimm (sorry). Hanna makes her way there via Morocco by hitching a lift with a new age English family in their hippy VW Dormobile. Saoirse Ronan’s acting talents really shine here as this is Hanna’s first experience with a real life family.
She may just as well be from another planet as she has no point of reference to compare them with and she exudes a child like quality but at the same time could snap your neck like a twig. The Mother and Father (Olivia Williams and Jason Flemyng) are very liberal parents but show concern that Hanna is travelling around the world on her own. Hanna strikes up a touching relationship with their daughter Sophie (Jessica Barden, last seen upstaging Gemma Arterton in Tamara Drewe) who teaches Hanna about life through her knowledge of ‘Entertainment Now’ and ‘Hello’ magazine.
The chase scenes and fight sequences are superbly choreographed with brutal realism rather than the usual overused slo-mo bullet time acrobatics. Hot on Hanna’s trail is rogue executioner Isaacs hired by Marissa through unofficial channels. Isaacs is played by English actor Tom Hollander as you’ve never seen him before, complete with bleached hair and a Nazi accent and an awful eighties fashion sense. The action is enhanced with a thumping good Chemical Brothers soundtrack as well.
It’s always good to see the versatile Eric Bana but I feel that he was slightly under used here and he almost plays the same angst ridden character straight from the film Munich. I find it amazing that Joe Wright has only ever made three other movies prior to Hanna, Pride & Prejudice (2005), nominated for 4 Oscars, Atonement (2007), winning an Oscar for best original score and The Soloist (2009). Wright also throws in a thumping good Chemical Brothers soundtrack.
Although I enjoyed the film it seemed to end all too soon and I felt that there were one or two things left unexplained. Perhaps part of the reason may have been because Universal changed the certification from the original 15 to a 12A? Having said all that I still put this down as my film of the year so far.
I give it an ‘edge of the seat’ [Rating:4/5]
Take Two.
I didn’t warm to this film at all. There was an emotional weight to Joe Wright’s work in Atonement, most of which came through from Ian McEwan’s stunning novel but there is nothing like the connection necessary to give the film its power. What we have here is a by the numbers revenge thriller with some great performances lost in a film within a narrative that doesn’t deviate from expectations. A refusal to defy conventions shouldn’t count against the film however when it quickly becomes clear that Hanna will always escape, always find her mark it becomes a passive experience. The soundtrack is, as Mark says, is something special but I found myself becoming distracted by it, just as I did with Tron: Legacy, and the action on screen was not nearly as exciting. I’m a fan of Joe Wright’s films, his anemic Pride & Prejudice aside, but for all the technical virtuosity on display here there was nothing to keep me involved.
[Rating:2/5]
– Jon Lyus
DVD extras:
- ?Joe Wright audio commentary.
- ?‘Escape from Camp G’ featurette.
- ?Deleted scenes
- ?Alternative ending.
Hanna is out on Blu-ray and DVD now.
