For the second year in a row, cinema has a little girl full of sunshine, daisies and badass. I speak of course of Hanna, Saoirse Ronan‘s audition piece for Hunger Games. Poor Saoirse, if that is in fact your real name, they just didn’t want somebody who fit the part perfectly. But I digress. Saoirse is Hanna, the kick-ass progeny of Erik (Eric Bana – did you actually give your actor named “Eric” the stage name “Erik”? Really? “This role calls for a ‘k’.” “Yeah. It’s a stretch, but I think I can go there.”) Again, I digress. Father figure Erik and young teen Hanna live in the frozen tundra of EurArctica, alternatively taking down caribou bare-handed in between studying for that all important Latin midterm. Life’s fun when your father is a sociopath.
Then one day, Hanna decides to pull the plug on the fun she’s having and go break necks in the city. Or at least that’s what it feels like. You see, Hanna is some sort of super-human army project, and she seems to be pretty angry about everything. A doctor here, an MP there, an inquisitor or two and escaping the lab is, forgive the expression, child’s play. Hanna is seriously badass.
After beginning so strong, the last hour of the film is devoted to the chase the girl/discover the truth scenario. This is a standard plot line in children’s films, like Escape to Witch Mountain, E.T., and Abduction, so it’s a little out–of-place here. Hanna is a better film in the first half, clearly, but still well worth the indulgence.
It’s weird that Hanna is as good an action film as any in 2011. IMDb lists the estimated budget on the four–foot hurricane as $30 M. Compare that to, say, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, $195 M. Transformers is one of those movies that promises steak but when you get there, your meal morphs and folds into a can of creamed spinach. Trans-people, you could learn a lot from a *cough* low-budget film. (Can one say that of $30 M? How about “much lower budget film”?) If you have the choice and no young children to consider, give Hanna a whirl instead.
Rated PG-13, 111 Minutes
D: Joe Wright
W: Seth Lochhead & David Farr
Genre: Kick-ass
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Action fans.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Reality fans.
