"Hanna" Review

Rather than waste time recapping the plot of Hanna, watch the trailer for me, please:



If it looks like an artsy take on the Hit Girl character from last year's Kick-Ass, you'd be wrong for the most part because Saoirse Ronan's (The Lovely Bones, Atonement) Hanna is a polite girl whose father, Eric Bana, has raised in total isolation in the Arctic Circle with a single purpose: to kill Cate Blanchett, the CIA spook who killed her mother. I don't think she swears once.

When she sets off on her mission and escape, Hanna finds herself in a world she's only read about. She can speak fluent Arabic, but has never seen a TV. When she hooks up with a Australian family of pseudo-Bohos, her inexperience with basic social situations leads to some hilarious awkward moments. ("As opposed to what?!?" is the funniest line of the movie.)

With a taut score by the Chemical Brothers (who beat down the overrated Daft Punk and their TRON Legacy bloops and beeps), good performances all around including the poorly-dressed, creepy German bar owner/assassin Blanchett sets after Hanna, and a very European vibe and look that avoids the usual locations for spy movies, Hanna is a more cerebral take on the adolescent murder girl genre. Yeah, you'll be able to predict the last line of dialogue, but it's OK.

Score: 8/10. Catch a matinee.