New Release Movies: Hanna (2011)

Bana and Blanchett.  Must be good right?  Not entirely.  With so much build up to one final showdown, the ending is rather lackluster.  But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Hanna is basically a revenge flick where Bana has trained up his 2 year old daughter for 14 years to become an elite assassin babe.  They are living out in the forests in Finland away from everyone and every thing.  Hanna hasn't heard music, hasn't seen television, hasn't had any modern technology basically (besides guns) but she is at the peak of her physical form (maybe even above her peak) thanks to Bana training her like a soldier each and every day.  Why is he training her?  Basically to kill Blanchett.  Why?  No real reason, just cause.

The impressive Saoirse Ronan as Hanna

So Hanna is finally ready to take down Blanchett and Bana unleashes her on to the world.  That's really about it.  Bana has a mean beard at the beginning but unfortunately shaves it off and suits up when he heads back to civilisation and Hanna is left to make her way to killing Blanchett and then meet up with her Dad later in the movie.

What did I like about the flick?

Saoirse Ronan does a great job of playing Hanna.  Her performance is pretty damn impressive for a 17 year old and she handles the character very well.  I've only ever seen her in one thing before and she impressed me in that too.  (Peter Jackson's boring as hell The Lovely Bones)

Bana also was at the top of his game here but not really having much to do.

Bana!  He did a fair amount of running and getting beat up

The action scenes are great and the beginning of the story was also good.  There probably wasn't as much action as I would have expected but what was there was decent enough.

What didn't I like?

Blanchett's performance wasn't as impressive.  I don't know if she was just bored with the character or if she was as lost as I was to why everything was happening but i felt that her performance was a bit over the top.

Blanchett did not impress

The fairytale undertones floating through out the whole movie served no purpose either.  I don't think it added anything to the story and probably could have just been missed all together.

The ending also was a massive let down.  We wen through this whole movie waiting for the pay off and it never really came.  There was no massive battle between good and evil.  The end fight was a yawnfest.

Still kicking arse

Though all in all it is a pretty solid action thriller that rests on the shoulders of a young star.  The action it pretty good and the movie has a rather funky feel too it, mainly thanks to the soundtrack by the Chemical Brothers that was rather hit and miss.  But the movie is definitely worth a look at.  I was probably just hoping for more of everything.

Enjoyable enough but never really takes that extra step of being amazing.  7/10.

Bana, Beard and Hanna