Hanna-review

A young Beatrix Kiddo kills a man.

            Hanna is a really great movie.  It’s got a lot of action, really interesting characters and a compelling story that works well as it weaves the audience through some very colorful locations. Saoirse Ronan and Eric Bana are both kick ass as Hanna and her Father who live in the wilderness of Finland training Hanna survivalist and fighting techniques. 

            Once ready she goes out in search of her Mother’s killer.  This happens to be Cate Blancett who seems to be playing her old role of the villain from “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” except with less cartoonish behavior.  She is sinister and there is more to her then lets on which makes her a complex villain.  She does hire some goons reminiscent of the nihilists from “The Big Lebowski”.  Not the best choice. 

Eric Bana feels watched.

            I did notice a similarity in this movie to “The Professional”.  In the “The Professional” Leon the hit man is a killer who knows only violence his whole life and has a child like wonder in his life when he meets someone that gives him a reason to share new experiences.  Likewise this movie does a lot of the same thing where Hanna escapes and finds a family on vacation which she joins and discovers a lot of the joys of life she missed when living in isolation in the forest.

            The biggest plot holes come from little details.  Hanna is taught absolutely useless facts from her father when she isn’t taught how to fight.  She might be able to speak several languages but she is in awe of the marvel of a light switch.  That is weak.  This girl just killed an entire room full of military guys in an area with lights and electronic camera (which she even makes a note of) but somehow the lights in a seedy Moroccan room blow her mind. 

Hanna finally got the paperwork to change her last name to "Montana".

            The second biggest hole was after her first coming into contact with electric appliances she was thrown off by how loud they were.  Yet even after acting like a caveman discovering fire when operating a light switch she is able to march into an internet café and hop onto a search engine and look up facts on genetic engineering.  Now don’t get me wrong I think if you can read you can pluck the letters of a keyboard and get by.  But if you have never seen one is it really realistic to believe she would have any idea how to operate a mouse much less open a browser and surf the web?

            All bitching aside though it’s a good movie.  I wish there was more to it honestly since it felt like they left a lot out.  It was a fun movie that really showed us a character that would actually be interesting to follow up on if they chose to.  If only directors would stop the shaky cam crap for standard movies.  Oh, and a lesson for heroes and villains: When you have enemies on the ground give them a coup de grace.  Don’t let them get back up.