HITMAN: AGENT 47
Rupert Friend as Agent 47 / Zachary Quinto as John Smith / Hannah Ware as Katia van Dees / Thomas Kretschmann as Le Clerq / Ciarán Hinds as Dr. Litvenko Directed by Aleksander Bach / Written by Skip Woods and Michael Finch |
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HITMAN: AGENT 47 is yet another entry on a woefully long list of pathetically awful video game to movie adaptations that’s not even really trying that hard to be good. It’s a
reboot, I guess, of the 2007 Timothy Olyphant starring adaptation of the
stealth video game action series developed by Eidos Interactive and now
published by Square Enix. I
enjoyed playing what little I have of those games – which featured a cloned
and everlastingly stoic assassin for hire that takes out high valued targets with
surgical precession – but there was rarely a moment that I enjoyed
watching this new cinematic version.
It’s fitting that the game series is about a genetically
engineered and emotionless killing machine; HITMAN: AGENT 47 is about as
manufactured and soulless as its titular character. There
are so many inherent problems with this film that I frankly grew dizzy
just pondering them before I wrote this review.
HITMAN: AGENT 47 was inexplicably co-written by Skip Woods, the
same man that penned the 2007 version, begging the question as to why
would you bother with a fresh reboot with the same writer.
That, and the makers of this new movie seem to have very little
fundamental understanding of what made the HITMAN video game series tick.
Those games emphasized lingering and working from within the
shadows in clandestine missions to take out intended targets.
The Hitman in this film is more like the Terminator than a
stealthily lethal force, mowing down wave after wave of enemies in a
blood-spewing maelstrom of gun blazing glory.
Worse yet is that HITMAN: AGENT 47 gorges on so much middling to
dreadful CG augmentation of its action sequences that it borders on being
unintentionally hilarious. The
film's second unit director was JOHN WICK co-director David Leitch, but it just
as well might have been credited to a computer as you never gain a sense
of the style and panache that he brought to that brutally efficient Keanu Reeves
thriller. Even
more dismal are the attempts here at basic storytelling and character
dynamics, both of which are hopeless AWOL in this film.
Agent 47 (Rupert Friend, a good headstrong actor that looks mostly
confused and irritated throughout most of the film) is an engineered killing machine that was birthed in a lab by a super secret organization
looking to create the ultimate perfect weapon (an organization that's so
secret that the film’s screenplay never really fleshes them out to any
intriguing levels). It
appears that project leader Dr. Litvenko (Ciaran Hinds) has disappeared
with the blueprints to make more hitmen, which makes him a highly valuable
target to the wrong kind of nefarious people.
Agent 47 is tagged by his handler to locate the daughter of the
doctor, Katia van Dees (Hannah Ware), whom also has been desperately
searching for her father before enemies of the agency can nab him and
start manufacturing their own ruthless killers. As
for the villains in this film? Agent
47, Katia and her father are perused by Le Clerq (Thomas Kretschmann) who
wants the agent program and Dr. Litvenko’s knowledge to perfect his own
agent-cloning program. In
the midst of all of this chaos is another secret agent named “John
Smith” (Zachary Quinto, enunciating his one note, cookie cutter dialogue
with a gravel voiced tenor that’s supposed to be chilling, but more or
less feels forced and distracting) that
initially seems like a protector of Katia, but then later shows his true
colors and ends up being her pursuer.
As Agent 47 finally connects with Katia the proverbial
chase is on, leading to both of them eluding capture by Smith’s goon
squad, but along the way – wouldn’t ya know it? – Katia begins to
display a particular set of gifts that makes it sure as hell appear that
she too was a product of the agent program.
With this revelation, Agent 47 sees Katia as a valuable – a
potentially lethal – ally in the search for her father. HITMAN:
AGENT 47 is a monumentally dumb and silly movie that just happens to take
itself as serious as a heart attack.
The overall solemnity of the film inspires frequent chuckles.
Beyond that, there are simply no characters in this film that
deserve our rooting interest. Are
we supposed to care about Agent 47, Katia, or her father?
They’re never distinguished in the screenplay as being personas
to truly feel for in any legitimate way…other than the fact that the
script tells us that we’re supposed to care.
The film also places these cardboard cutouts masquerading as people
within a narrative that’s as murky as it is ludicrous.
Sometimes, even earthbound logic seems to escape the “reality”
of this film. Take, for
example, Katia’s “powers” (if you can call them that): Throughout
the film she begins to harness her radar-esque Spidey sense of danger that
warns her of impeding doom from literally miles away.
How does this work and why does it work only when the screenplay
deems it convenient? At times, she’s able to conjure up her Force-like powers to
get herself and Agent 47 out of any predicament, but then at other times
she’s almost a helpless damsel in distress that can be knocked out cold.
It’s just stupid...and I just wished that this film embraced its stupidly. Beyond
its moronic plotting, the action we are left with here should have been
the main selling points of another HITMAN entry.
Regrettably, and as previously mentioned, HITMAN: AGENT 47 replaces
what should have been some rough, rugged, and viscerally relatable
violence and mayhem with CG tinkering that looks sloppily constructed
in nearly every scene it’s utilized. From pixelized geysers of blood and brain matter to
horrendously obvious and unconvincing computer rendered stunt doubles that
flip-flop over cars and crash land on the ground on impact, HITMAN: AGENT
47 looks more like a first pass VFX demo reel than a fully realized motion
picture. The more times you
see Agent 47 defy the laws of physics in scene after scene of choppy and
awkwardly staged action the more times I checked my watch out of boredom.
By the time the film reaches its unavoidable conclusion – pitting
all heroes and villains against one another in a massive winner-take-all
donnybrook – I felt feelings of pitiful exhaustion and apathy. HITMAN: AGENT 47 is all mindless sound and fury ultimately signifying nothing, frequently reflecting the barest of minimal efforts by director Aleksander Bach (making his feature filmed debut here) to produce a polished final product worthy of a large scale theatrical release. His resulting film here feels like an aggressively putrid 90-plus-minute trailer that’s void of likeable characters, an enthralling story, and an overall reason for existing in the first place. I simply just didn’t care about anyone or anything here. Die hard action film devotees may get their kicks out of HITMAN: AGENT 47 as an easily digestible and easily forgettable action thriller, but for the rest of viewers out there the film is incoherent, messy, hollow and dead on arrival. The only thing that this video game adaptation lacks is a controller in the theatre chair with a much needed reset button. |
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