Hitman: Agent 47

I honestly don't remember a thing about 2007's Hitman movie.  That's the problem when you see as many films as I do every year - you tend to forget a lot of them.  But, perhaps that's for the best, as I dug up my review of that one from back in the day, and I didn't exactly have many kind things to say about it.  Having seen Hitman: Agent 47, my only hope is that I'll be forgetting this one as well before too long.

Maybe fans of the video games these movies are based on will like it.  I don't know, as I've never played them, so I can't judge how faithful this film is.  All I can give you is the perspective of a viewer walking into the movie cold and with no real previous knowledge.  On that level, I found this thing relentlessly tired and kind of endless.  It's the kind of movie that oddly feels like it was made to be forgotten.  The action is redundant, with many of the martial arts and gun fights in the film looking exactly the same.  The plot does little to hold our interest, as it's comprised of off the shelf parts of other movies just like it.  There was no reason for this to be made, other than the studio thought they could make a quick buck over a slow summer weekend.

This is also one of those movies where the characters are dictated by the plot, rather than their personalities.  What do I mean?  Well, let's take a look at the female lead, Katia (Hannah Ware).  She's a young woman on the run from mysterious assailants who are either trying to capture or kill her (perhaps both).  She does have one advantage, as she's been born with the unique ability to see future events.  She can tell when someone is coming to get her seconds before they show up, so she can make her escape before the bad guys show up.  Useful, right?  And yet, her ability is inconsistent throughout the story.  Sometimes she has this ability, and other times, her attackers are able to get the drop on her without her being the wiser.  How does this work?  Are there limitations?  Do her powers only work during certain times of the day?  It's never explained, and I fear her powers work only when the screenplay deems it necessary.

One of the people pursuing her is the mysterious Agent 47 (Rupert Friend), a skilled assassin who was genetically engineered as a child to be the perfect killing machine.  He has never been caught and his identity remains a secret to the public, which is surprising considering you would think a guy with a bar code tattoo on the back of his bald head and that blazing red tie he wears around his neck all the time would at least get noticed just a little.  An evil organization is planning to start the "Agent Program" up again, creating more perfect killing machines, and old 47 doesn't want the competition, I guess.  He's trying to track down Katia, not only because her dad (who has gone missing) was responsible for the project, but that he thinks her powers hint that she may also be an Agent as well and doesn't know it.  There are lots of other people after her as well, chief amongst them being John Smith (Zachary Quinto), who cannot be killed by Agent 47's bullets because his body is filled with some kind of experimental substance that makes him almost invincible.

Hitman: Agent 47 almost seems embarrassed by itself, and does its best not to stand out in any way.  Not in its characters, not in the performances (which are routinely stiff and wooden), and not even in its visuals.  That's one thing you would expect an action movie based on a video game to get right.  The screenplay by Michael Finch and Skip Woods is largely inconsequential, with nothing registering or creating excitement in the audience.  We're simply watching these barely written characters race, shoot and karate chop their way through a plot that's barely there.  There is supposed to be tension in the relationship between Agent 47 and Katia, as she doesn't know if she can fully trust him, or if he will try to kill her when this is all over.  But, thanks to the completely passionless performances of the two leads, no tension or chemistry is created at any time.

I actually just now paused writing this review in order to look up some videos of the games that inspired the film.  Judging by what I have watched, the games seem much more suspenseful and better put together than anything that wound up on the screen here.  So, my guess is the fans won't enjoy this much, and this will be yet another movie I will quickly forget.  The sooner the better, I say.

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