Hanna MOVIE REVIEW
Posted by Thomas Ma on Friday, June 10, 2011
Skeptism is the word I use when I started watching Hanna. The premise of "cat and mouse" and a secret past can end up good or bad, whether its Bourne Identity or Salt. Hanna establishes that trend in a supernatural feel to it from director Joe Wright who directed such British flicks as Pride and Prejudice and Atonement. His career of creating highly-polished visuals and intensity of a thriller with action of the Bourne films isn't his "cup of tea". But he pulls it off like the rest of the directors, nowadays could produce - something worth watching.
"I missed it's heart" Will probably come back later on.
From Atonement, Irish actress Saoirse Ronan shines through as a fragile-esque yet deadly girl, Hanna from a remote land somewhere North (the film obviously didn't tell) who lives a quiet and "uncivilized" nomadic life with his "dad", a ex-CIA agent played Eric Bana (Hulk). While she isn't hunting for her "prey" for dinner, his father teaches her a variety of information ranging from different languages, encyclopedic spurts and of course, teaching her to defend herself with surreal fighting. She and her father pretty much lives in a isolationist life outside of civilization, unknown to her that civilization will get to her soon. As she is easily impressed by a plane that flew by her house, screaming like a banshee.
Marissa begins her mission to track down Hanna and Heller
But one day, his father has her "other life" planned for her as he plans a tracking device for her "if she's ready for it!". When she activates that tracking device, it turns this silent yet calm intro, upside down into a Salt-esque thriller as it notifies not only the CiA to track her down but a hard-ass agent, Marissa played surprisingly by Cate Blanchett. Which Hanna requires to kill her. This thriller becomes more of a unrelenting chase film when the CiA had captured Hanna and had transported him into a unknown underground CiA facility somewhere in the deserts of Africa(?). There Hanna escapes this underground facility and had walked into a small yet cute British family who Hanna befriends with from a obsessed daughter to a hippy mom played by Olivia Williams in an adventure of melancholy to Morocco.
Hanna befriending Sophie(?)
Hanna has lived away from civilization so she is unknown to the world around her such as the case of "being from another planet". This was mostly established when she had escaped the underground facility and ventured to Morocco where a Arabian person decided to rent a small room for her to stay. It clearly shows that her mysterious past was only lived in a small cabin out of nowhere and when the sights and sounds of things like television, the phone to the kettle begin to come into her mind, it's a claustrophobic and loud atmosphere that Hanna persisted into. But as much of her encounters with this small British family would be, she had developed friendship and hospitality; one that she really didn't much had outside of civilization. Plus her first encounters with a Spanish "too old for them" boy, clearly you could see her uncomfortable in that situation and the result of that date becoming violent yet less intimate.
Two psychopathic skinheads plus a sadist assassin tracking down Hanna
While Hanna is making friends and running away, Marissa is running two operations to track both Heller (Hanna's dad) and Hanna herself down with the help of a sadistic, whisting pervy played by Tom Hollander and his two psychopathic skinhead associates. Now this is where it gets ridiculous, as Hanna is transported to this underground facility in Morocco and going to Berlin - her father, Heller swam all the fucking way from their small cabin to fucking Berlin with a business attire. This wasn't really establish how he has the supernatural strength to swam and walk all the way from Finland to Berlin.
The other aspect of how this "mysterious" Bourne-esque surreal fantasy could be is Hanna's mysterious past and how the film didn't really tell you until later on with threads of flashbacks and googling her "past" with DNA to find out that she really isn't what she ought to be. The purpose of intrigue and suspense of Hanna's past goes into visuals and short dialogue is handled decently by unknown screenwriters Seth Lochhead and David Farr who decided that where the direction is going and forgets telling the audience, leaving us confused. Also the fact that the characters disappear through the course of the film, such as the British family, regardless of their fate or not in the hands of Marissa, it clearly went away.
Hanna running
The difference from a silent approach that persisted in the starting escalates into a visual-intensive action that compliments the chase sequences from Morocco, Spain to Germany to the unknown world surrounding Hanna consists only within the life that she had never been in. Making it a intriguing yet polished piece of inspiration that Wright decided to partake in. Such performances as Cate Blanchett surprises me as she is quite noticeable by her "goddess" voice which it clearly didn't show it in this film. Olivia Williams plays great once again as the hippy British mother and Eric Bana as Hanna "father" maybe good yet decent. Saoirse Ronan is the star of this film with her silent "quirkiness" captures and captivates the essence in her role in such a young age. Wright's career shows highly-stylized visuals and intense action thriller, chasing sequences that put Salt into shame but manages too less of information that should have been described to the audience in a manner of a conclusion. It's a shame that my skeptism could go away if it was less pacing with the chasing scenes and become more establish like what the Bourne Identity did.
