An abstract interpretation of the Little Red Riding Hood children's horror story, Hanna is a stylized shell. Saoirse Ronan plays 16-year-old Hanna. Her father, a former CIA agent named Erik (Eric Bana), trains her in a remote wintry Finland forest to become a killing machine a la La Femme Nikita. In their cabin, Hanna has also learned to speak multiple languages. When she is ready to handle all the violence international espionage has to offer, the blonde femme fatale strikes out on her own. Father and daughter agree to reunite in Berlin. Flaming-bitch-on-wheels intelligence-op Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett) has a vested interest in capturing Hanna. The perfect assassin Hanna is Wiegler's brainchild.
Don't go looking for a plot that even remotely resembles the Grimm Brothers story. A giant, ostentatiously designed wolf-head tunnel entrance is the film's most obvious hat-tip aside from a book of fairy tales that Hanna reads. Hanna adeptly evades danger and doles out the requisite ass-kickings, but there's no sense of logic or reason to her motivations. Hanna might as well be a robot. Director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) has gone astray here — sci-fi action is not a good genre for this promising filmmaker to pursue. Grade: C
Opens April 8. Check out theaters and show times, see the trailer and get theater details here.
