Trailer Review: HANNA

"Once Upon A Time"

Director Joe Wright whose past work includes Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, and The Soloist; directs this story about a small girl trained by her father to be an assassin and from the looks of it go after a CIA agent played by Cate Blanchett. The juxtaposition in the opening words, the lullaby-like music and scenes of actress Saoirse Ronan as Hanna screaming like a viking and viciously attacking Eric Bana, her father, are just surreal. There's also a really nice color palette that go throughout the trailer. For example, those opening scenes start out in the snow; the stark, white, dream-like environment represents an innocence and the purity that we the audience should feel for the young girl. Which then shifts to very vast colors of blues, reds, and grays. Even Cate Blanchett's hair, RED, makes her more a villain. Aside from the action, drama, CGI and "entertainment" in movies trailers; colors, play a huge part.

What I find most interesting about this movie is its similarities to the movie Kick-Ass, directed by Matthew Vaughn. When Vaughn was shopping around the script for Kick-Ass there was an 11 year old girl who was cutting off people's arms and legs with samurai swords and brutally murdering bad guys. Studios only request was that they up the age of the girl to 19 or 20. Long story short, Vaughn didn't cave and Kick-Ass became a huge hit because of that young assassin.

Hanna, while it looks really good, is Hollywood's answer to Kick-Ass; A PG-13 movie with a small child assassin. PG-13, in a movie that looks this visceral really turns me off, because I get the feeling that the movie will be restricted by its rating and not reach its fully crazy, assassin like potential. Granted there are movies rated PG-13, like Taken, with Liam Neeson that still "bring the pain" as it were. But then there are movies like the Angelina Jolie vehicle Salt, that was really affected by its PG-13 rating and turn out to be very unoriginal as a result.

I'm not really a fan of Hollywood doing such things because once again we reach the reality of Hollywood not having anymore any original ideas. But at the same time all movies are inspired by something else. It shouldn't impair your judgement of a movie but its definitely something to look at when you see movies.

Personally, I'm going to be there opening weekend to see Hanna, I think Saoirse Ronan looks fantastic as the title character and I'm really curious at what the McGuffin in this movie, which is some sort of DNA revelation about Hanna. Test tube baby? Alien? Perhaps she was created from the DNA of the finest Judges in Megacity...oh wait sorry that was Judge Dredd.

Anyway the final review of this movie will be when the credits roll and the house lights go up.

Hanna screams its way into theaters on April 8th 2011.

Dueces,
StuntmanBob


oops almost forgot to mention, the score is done by the Chemical Brothers!!! Oh yea!