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Hitman
As both a gamer and a moviegoer, I was unfortunately disappointed.
Review by Kiwi
I'm a huge fan of Eidos' Hitman series, so I was of course very excited when a movie version was announced. Sure, it was being helmed by Vin Diesel, but I figured it still had a chance. A few months later, Diesel stepped down as exectutive producer and lead role as the game's protagonist, Mr. 47. Well, for me this was even better, because now someone else could make the movie and it wouldn't feel like I'm watching XXX or anything. Perhaps it is my own fault for being so hyped about the movie, but I'm sad to say that Hitman is a bust.
The story begins with a montage of 47 and other children being tattooed and trained for combat-necessary skills, then shifts to the present day, where an INTERPOL agent enters his house and finds Mr. 47 (played by Timothy Olyphant, whom most people will probably either know as villain Thomas Gabriel from summer's Live Free or Die Hard or as Seth Bullock from HBO series Deadwood) sitting cooly behind a desk with a gun pointed at the agent's head. After some dialogue, 47 does the obvious thing: jump to a flashback of three months earlier, which is where the meat of the story takes place. The voiceover of the INTERPOL agent discusses The Organization, a politically neutral group with connections to every intelligence agency in the modern world and a take-off of The Agency from the game series, and how they take orphans and the like and train them to be professional contract killers. After a short stint in Africa, 47 is whisked away to St. Petersburg where he's contracted to assassinate the president of Russia in a public place. Unfortunately, the job somehow goes mysteriously wrong and eventually 47 finds himself hunted by the Russian secret police, INTERPOL, and for some reason, other contract agents of the Organization, all the while taking along the president's personal cheap whore, Nika (model Olga Kurylenko, who spends a good majority of the movie topless apparently for the sake of being topless).
The film begins decently, but loses steam quickly as the focus shifts from 47 taking out marks and defending himself from his numerous trackers to something akin to a spy thriller, only with more blood and murder. The big problem here is that it's not a very good thriller. The plot and dialogue both reek of bad writing, with the INTERPOL agent on 47's tail using such "tried-and-true" lines like "I know this guy better than anyone else, I know what he'll do" and other typical cocky pursuing agent quips, and the story quickly becomes muddled and plagued with too many plot twists and one-off characters who reappear at just the right time since 47 had everything planned all along, or something. Generally speaking, the writing is thin and mostly crap. However, a few points do go to the writer who came up with the idea to name the agent's partner Jenkins, because that poor guy does so much work for him it's almost like he's his butler.
Character-wise, Olyphant wears the suit well and can look the part, and is without a doubt at his best when performing a hit, but any scene of dialogue, notably between him and Kurylenko, seems to fall flat or just plain sucks. One of my favorite examples is the requisite "Hero and girl must separate for her safety scene" where after all that was set-up, Nika asks 47 before he leaves to do his job, "What are you going to?" and he replies, "What I do." A few people had a good laugh at that line, but that certainly wasn't the first time they'd done it. Another problem is Olyphant's voice; like I said, he can walk the walk, but compared to the stern and serious voice of David Bateson in the games, Olyphant sounds like a bad Keanu Reeves impersonator. He definitely makes an effort, but most of the time it just isn't enough. Kurylenko, as mentioned before, just spends most of the movie topless and attempting to woo 47 in various states of inebriation. If not that, she's probably in the trunk of 47's car. Again, there's a case of somewhat good talent being put to waste: She's not going to be nominated for an Oscar anytime soon, but she has a hint of potential that's squandered with the shoddy script in most scenes. On the other hand, she's very good looking and in the scenes where she tries to make a move on 47, she plays a whore really well. I don't know if that's really a plus or not.
One big, big thing that bugged me throughout the film is the Russian characters. There's many scenes where the first few lines of dialogue between the Russians will be subtitled in Russian, but then they switch to talking in English for no reason at all, such as a chat between the Russian president and the head of the secret police, or the president giving a speech before hundreds of Russian citizens. After about two or three lines of subtitled Russian, they'll jump to speaking English, as if they had to establish that, yes, these characters know Russian, but they'd rather speak in English because the film is in English, or something. I understand the cost of voice coaching to make sure they have accents correct, but if the studio's going to make a choice, they should have either gone in all Russian for those dialogues or gone all English. It looks terrible half-assing it like that.
As both a gamer and a general moviegoer, it saddens me greatly to call Hitman a disappointment. Maybe it's ridiculous to hold high hopes for a movie based on a video game franchise, given their general outcome, but when it's a favorite series like Hitman is for me, you can't help but hope that it won't be bad. The movie isn't terrible, for sure; as I said, any scene where Olyphant is taking out a mark or playing the cool professional of weaponry or combat is generally short, but a winner. The problem is that when you boil down to it, it really tries to be like the Bourne trilogy, with a mysterious assassin on the run from people who want him for reasons he doesn't understand, and learning about love on the way. Agent 47, whether he's a clone or an orphan, is a professional assassin, and while he can certainly outwit authorities, he also isn't Jason Bourne. No matter who you are, you're probably best off renting this when it comes out on DVD or just skipping it altogether. Pardon the pun, but it's safe to say Hitman misses its mark.
As both a gamer and a moviegoer, I was unfortunately disappointed.
Review by Kiwi
I'm a huge fan of Eidos' Hitman series, so I was of course very excited when a movie version was announced. Sure, it was being helmed by Vin Diesel, but I figured it still had a chance. A few months later, Diesel stepped down as exectutive producer and lead role as the game's protagonist, Mr. 47. Well, for me this was even better, because now someone else could make the movie and it wouldn't feel like I'm watching XXX or anything. Perhaps it is my own fault for being so hyped about the movie, but I'm sad to say that Hitman is a bust.
The story begins with a montage of 47 and other children being tattooed and trained for combat-necessary skills, then shifts to the present day, where an INTERPOL agent enters his house and finds Mr. 47 (played by Timothy Olyphant, whom most people will probably either know as villain Thomas Gabriel from summer's Live Free or Die Hard or as Seth Bullock from HBO series Deadwood) sitting cooly behind a desk with a gun pointed at the agent's head. After some dialogue, 47 does the obvious thing: jump to a flashback of three months earlier, which is where the meat of the story takes place. The voiceover of the INTERPOL agent discusses The Organization, a politically neutral group with connections to every intelligence agency in the modern world and a take-off of The Agency from the game series, and how they take orphans and the like and train them to be professional contract killers. After a short stint in Africa, 47 is whisked away to St. Petersburg where he's contracted to assassinate the president of Russia in a public place. Unfortunately, the job somehow goes mysteriously wrong and eventually 47 finds himself hunted by the Russian secret police, INTERPOL, and for some reason, other contract agents of the Organization, all the while taking along the president's personal cheap whore, Nika (model Olga Kurylenko, who spends a good majority of the movie topless apparently for the sake of being topless).
The film begins decently, but loses steam quickly as the focus shifts from 47 taking out marks and defending himself from his numerous trackers to something akin to a spy thriller, only with more blood and murder. The big problem here is that it's not a very good thriller. The plot and dialogue both reek of bad writing, with the INTERPOL agent on 47's tail using such "tried-and-true" lines like "I know this guy better than anyone else, I know what he'll do" and other typical cocky pursuing agent quips, and the story quickly becomes muddled and plagued with too many plot twists and one-off characters who reappear at just the right time since 47 had everything planned all along, or something. Generally speaking, the writing is thin and mostly crap. However, a few points do go to the writer who came up with the idea to name the agent's partner Jenkins, because that poor guy does so much work for him it's almost like he's his butler.
Character-wise, Olyphant wears the suit well and can look the part, and is without a doubt at his best when performing a hit, but any scene of dialogue, notably between him and Kurylenko, seems to fall flat or just plain sucks. One of my favorite examples is the requisite "Hero and girl must separate for her safety scene" where after all that was set-up, Nika asks 47 before he leaves to do his job, "What are you going to?" and he replies, "What I do." A few people had a good laugh at that line, but that certainly wasn't the first time they'd done it. Another problem is Olyphant's voice; like I said, he can walk the walk, but compared to the stern and serious voice of David Bateson in the games, Olyphant sounds like a bad Keanu Reeves impersonator. He definitely makes an effort, but most of the time it just isn't enough. Kurylenko, as mentioned before, just spends most of the movie topless and attempting to woo 47 in various states of inebriation. If not that, she's probably in the trunk of 47's car. Again, there's a case of somewhat good talent being put to waste: She's not going to be nominated for an Oscar anytime soon, but she has a hint of potential that's squandered with the shoddy script in most scenes. On the other hand, she's very good looking and in the scenes where she tries to make a move on 47, she plays a whore really well. I don't know if that's really a plus or not.
One big, big thing that bugged me throughout the film is the Russian characters. There's many scenes where the first few lines of dialogue between the Russians will be subtitled in Russian, but then they switch to talking in English for no reason at all, such as a chat between the Russian president and the head of the secret police, or the president giving a speech before hundreds of Russian citizens. After about two or three lines of subtitled Russian, they'll jump to speaking English, as if they had to establish that, yes, these characters know Russian, but they'd rather speak in English because the film is in English, or something. I understand the cost of voice coaching to make sure they have accents correct, but if the studio's going to make a choice, they should have either gone in all Russian for those dialogues or gone all English. It looks terrible half-assing it like that.
As both a gamer and a general moviegoer, it saddens me greatly to call Hitman a disappointment. Maybe it's ridiculous to hold high hopes for a movie based on a video game franchise, given their general outcome, but when it's a favorite series like Hitman is for me, you can't help but hope that it won't be bad. The movie isn't terrible, for sure; as I said, any scene where Olyphant is taking out a mark or playing the cool professional of weaponry or combat is generally short, but a winner. The problem is that when you boil down to it, it really tries to be like the Bourne trilogy, with a mysterious assassin on the run from people who want him for reasons he doesn't understand, and learning about love on the way. Agent 47, whether he's a clone or an orphan, is a professional assassin, and while he can certainly outwit authorities, he also isn't Jason Bourne. No matter who you are, you're probably best off renting this when it comes out on DVD or just skipping it altogether. Pardon the pun, but it's safe to say Hitman misses its mark.
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