Video games don’t have the greatest track record when it comes to being adapted for the big screen. The only one that really stands out to me is Ace Attorney, but the majority of people haven’t seen it due to it being a foreign film. Fox is hoping to change that this weekend with the release of a reboot of a potential franchise, Hitman: Agent 47.
Directed by Aleksander Bach, who makes his directorial debut, Hitman: Agent 47 focuses on a highly skilled, genetically engineered assassin clone, named 47 (Rupert Friend), whose only purpose in life is to kill people. There’s a mega corporation that is looking to replicate the Agent program from which 47 came from, but to do so they must find the brilliant man who found and led the program. He has fallen off the grid but, to the corporations’ luck, they’ve been able to slowly track down his daughter, Katia (Hannah Ware) who may know where he is.
Katia has been on the run for ages, trying to track down the man in her dreams and learn about her ancestry. Eventually, she encounters both 47 and another killer named John Smith (Zachary Quinto) who seems to be saving her from 47. After some twists and turns, Katia teams up with 47 in hopes of finding her father and helping 47 prevent the corporation from continuing their pursuit of rebuilding the Agent Program.
Hitman: Agent 47 doesn’t do much to improve the video game adaptation track record, but it certainly doesn’t take any steps back. It has some plot holes, both big and small, and it has a few moments where you have to question some of the characters’ intelligence. All of the main players are really smart and there’s one revelation about the whereabouts of the father that just seem almost too obvious for people that have been hunting him down for years. The fact that they couldn’t find him is shocking. There are also a few editing issues with the film as well that could have made it a bit more realistic and simple, but these are minor in comparison to the script.
While the film doesn’t excel much in the story department, if you’ve got the right expectations set going into this film then there is a chance you’ll like it. I didn’t have high hopes because it’s a video game adaptation. That being said, I tend to have fun watching these types of action flicks because, frankly, I’m there for one thing, action, and boy did Hitman deliver on that. Rupert Friend kicked ass as 47 and the choreography and execution of all of his fights and kills was really exciting. There were also some pretty impressive set pieces that were very unique in an age where originality becomes more and more difficult. While I can’t necessarily take Zachary Quinto seriously as villain, he was also kind of fun to watch even if his abilities stretched a little too far.
I’d also like to give props to Hannah Ware for proving herself as a worthy action lead in her first major studio film. She not only had some sweet moves but she was the emotional core of the film and, while nobody is going to honestly focus on that part, it was a crucial element to keeping the film going.
Lastly, the visuals in this film were great. This is the first Hollywood film to ever shoot in Singapore and they made sure to exploit it in all its glory. I’ve never been nor really seen pictures of Singapore and Hitman: Agent 47 delivers on capturing its dreamlike and futuristic cityscape, one that’s perfect for a video game movie such as this. Also, the use of security cameras and other small elements that played into the video game mode of the film were well utilized and appreciated from a gamer’s perspective (though I’ve never played the actual Hitman games).
Like I mentioned earlier, Hitman: Agent 47 doesn’t reinvent the wheel and doesn’t do much to propel video game adaptations forward from a story perspective, but it does deliver on the one aspect you want it to, the action. As the summer begins to wind down and festival season begins to ramp up, should you find yourself looking for a mindless piece of popcorn cinema, Hitman should do the job, just make sure you go in knowing that the story will take a back seat to the awesome action that you’ll get to see.
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