HITMAN: Agent 47

HITMAN: Agent 47
This is an OK movie that is NOT theater worthy

Hitman is a popular video game series that started from 2000 and has made it's way all the way here to 2015 with its latest release. It eventually spawned a successful movie back in 2007 which stared Timothy Olyphant as the world class hitman. Many have come to agree that with his physique, and cold yet charming demeanor, he was the perfect man for the job. Not to mention that pulling off the bald look was a feat in itself. The original 2007 film had a great story that was strong and well supported throughout the film. It had good practical action with a lot of stunts and the focus was on Agent 47, the Hitman.

                Sometimes you can’t really put your thumb on what it is about a movie that rubs you the wrong way, but just for some reason, it does. For me this is one of those movies. I can see how some would love this movie, maybe see the action as adequate, the acting being good, and the story compelling. Unfortunately my problem, my biggest problem, lies with the story. There were so many plot twists that the film should’ve had more time to set up each one. This way there’s a build-up of suspense, or anticipation, and then BOOM . . . the story or character goes off in a different direction. However, for this movie, that wasn’t the case. The film didn’t spend enough time to support many of the plot twist and therefore, in my opinion, the effectiveness of the story greatly deteriorated.

There was also a problem with the set-up of the characters, mostly notably the girl (the one you saw strung up on a chair in the previews). In the previews you hear the Hitman say to the girl, while tied up to a chair and hung in the air, “You’re like me, get out yourself”. With that line it’s known that in the story you discover she has abilities not known to her that could come in handy with the confrontations yet to come. You also see her, in the previews, get out of the chair and mount a landing. Now while she does demonstrate some of her untrained, yet natural, abilities in the previews, I can tell you right now that they explore very little of what she can do, as opposed to Agent 47. There’s also not much shown about her training or how she can learn to control her abilities. By the end she seems to have, more or less, mastered many of her latent abilities from only a few exercises. It makes for a less interesting character and story all around. Many of the characters received even less attention and end up leaving us with little known about them. The main antagonist of the film is given a ridiculous ability, something more like what you’d find in the Resident Evil series, and you know nothing of his background or why this particular mission is so personal. It becomes very apparent that the Hitman, Agent 47, and this antagonist have a personal vendetta against each other. Why do they have this vendetta, how did it start, and how did this antagonist’s ability come to be? These questions, if answered through the story, would have made for a much better story with much more fulfilling characters.

 

               Action wise there were a lot of explosions, shoot outs, and Michael Bay like action sequences utilizing CGI, but that isn’t what Hitman is all about. He’s all about cleaver tactics and kicking ass in close quarters combat. Agent 47’s tactics, in this film, were more blunt than tactical. When it came to close quarters combat, although still effective, he just didn’t come off nearly as confident or cool as Timothy Olyphant’s Agent from the original 2007 film. They were way too computerized in the action sequences for this film, as opposed to the original, and I think it shows that practical effects just beat out computerized ones when dealing with this kind of action film. It may work for Resident Evil but it doesn’t work here. We want snipers, we want swords, we want crazy ass fighting moves, and we want it all real! And I hate to say it but, Rupert Friend just doesn’t carry the same charisma as a Hitman agent the way Timothy Olyphant did. The fit felt weird!

                If you have a free movie ticket then I would say go for it, otherwise you really may want to wait for Redbox. Even then, there’s a good chance this film will end up on Netflix soon within a year or so, so maybe just wait for that even. But like I said, this is all an opinion and you may enjoy it more than I. If you think you’ll enjoy it I say go with your gut and I hope you enjoy!