Hanna (2011)

Instant Favorite.

Excellent adaptation.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Hanna is, ultimately, too stylized for its own good. Some of the artistic choices are fun and interesting, but most of the time it is just distracting. Nevertheless, Saoirse Ronan is a wonderful actress and she gives a powerful performance in this film. The story is interesting, I just didn't like how it was told.

I think google managed to create AI with more character than Hanna. It's like Hanna doesn't have a brain at all... she seems so shallow and from another planet. And of course, she's a 40 kg who can easily take down guys 3 times her size. Because in every action movie, the main character has to be someone with super duper kung fu skills.We barely get any story behind characters... no clever action sequences, nothing. and there WAS room for hanna to act all amazed at society, but no. It seems like she fits perfectly into a society that she has never even SEEN before in her life. No consistency, no explanation, nothing. Lame as hell. Ending is crap and unfinished. I bet the script for this movie was less than 3 pages.One good thing about this movie is that it makes other movies like the matrix, seem so much better in comparison. You now have a scale to compare a good movie with depth (matrix) with a shallow movie with no depth (hanna).

Director Joe Wright creates a world of mystery and conspiracy in this action drama with occasional thriller elements, carrying the audience on a 105 Minutes (excluding credits) roller-coaster ride of emotion ranging from rage, fear, struggle, stone cold murders to empathetic human exchange at Morocco desert location in which actress Saoirse Ronan cuts her teeth for future acting assignments to come, by training physically and mentally toward spiritual balance in the role of title-given "Hanna", supported by an under-developed part for actor Eric Bana as her father Eric Heller, who has been fleeing for 15 years from former lover and now competing CIA executive Marissa Wiegler, viciously portrayed as the big bad wolf in the woods by Cate Blanchett, building a tri-angle between the actors of relentless conflict potential, which unfortunately comes only to partial flourishment in some precisely executed action sequences combining martial arts movements, full contact combat with gun and knife in constant tracking cinematographic motions by Alwin H. Küchler, who just misses at times the last consequence to make a full frontal impact with unless flawlessly supervised SteadiCam operations, which serve a simple redemption story, where the character of Hanna avenging her father by confronting Marissa; towards signature-given visual story-telling plus a neo-realism soundtrack by Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons (aka The Chemical Brothers). The story-telling tools, which Director Joe Wright had been well established since his Academy-Award-Nominated picture "Atonement" (2007) with a 5-minute tracking scene of actor James McAvoy running the desolated beaches of Dunkirk in WW2, yet finding his limits in translating classic story-telling to visual splendor with the Hollywood Major production "Pan" of an approximately rated net-worth of 150 Millions U.S. Dollars in season 2014/2015 for Warner Bros. Studios, where unforgiven conflicts between fast-past TV producers pair Greg Berlanti & Sarah Schechter as well as on-set changing cinematography between John Mathieson & Seamus McGarvey destroyed a director's vision to rise again with an ascending film "Darkest Hour" in Fall 2017 for independent Working Title productions on story on Winston Churchill standing trail in the 1940s, starring Gary Oldman in the title role, creating buzz toward an excellent performance under heavy make-up in order to find a director's balance again in a character's study despite the former action-driven story-lines as "Hanna". © 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Good action-thriller. Slow-building, gritty, plot is very intriguing. Too complex though, with many loose ends which never get tied up. A bit more explanation of certain aspects of the plot was called for, as it would have made the story more coherent. However, it was good that certain details weren't spoon-fed to the audience, being slowly bled in. Solid direction. Fight scenes are exciting, without being too plentiful and thus seeming to be the only focus of the movie (unlike many martial arts movies).Good performance from Saoirse Ronan in the lead role. Solid support from Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett.