Hitman : Agent 47 (2015)

500 character mini-reviews cramping your style? Share your thoughts in full in this forum!
ikkegoemikke
Posts: 654
4306 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 3:31 pm

Hitman : Agent 47 (2015)

Post by ikkegoemikke »

"We determine who we are by what we do."

Image

Before, when I had no responsibilities and enough time in the evening, I was hopelessly addicted to playing video games. Many hours I spent behind my monitor slogging myself through all sorts of levels. Wondering what would follow. I had this relentless drive to improve myself on all fronts. Nowadays, I can't bring myself to stare at a screen for hours as an addict. On the one hand I don't have the time anymore and on the other hand I don't feel like doing that anymore. But I do get excited every time there's an attempt to make a film adaptation of a video game. The meager attempts there have been to date (and somewhat successful in my opinion) are for me the "Tomb Raider" and "Resident Evil" franchise. But still there's something subtle missing in those movies when you compare them with their console version. Perhaps it's because you don't have control over it and must undergo it. Perhaps the reason is plain simple. Maybe video games aren't suitable for screen adaptations.

What about this Hit-man film? Unfortunately, I haven't seen the original film from 2007. So I have no clue how bad or good that was. And I don't know what comparables there are with this version of "Hit-man : Agent 47". Agent 47 (Rupert Friend) is a cold-blooded, dispassionate secret agent who is a kind of reincarnation of Neo, mixed with John Wick and "The Equalizer". Fearless, intelligent, very fast and deadly. On the cover you see a bald, unemotional man in a sleek black suit and a red tie, holding two dangerous looking guns. A genetically engineered assassin, originating from the laboratory of Dr. Pitor Litvenko (Ciaran Hinds). Apparently everybody is looking for Litvenko. But all have their own reasons to find him. Agent 47 is looking for the abandoned daughter Katia (Hannah Ware). His task is to eliminate her, so that the "Syndicate International" can't use her to track Litvenko. This organization wants to restart the Agent program.

"Hit-man: Agent 47" is nothing more than a series of action-packed scenes full of meaningless violent confrontations with a rather weak storyline. The violence is abundant and waves of extreme skirmishes hit you continuously. At those moments you'll witness the superhuman features like for instance a sub-dermal titanium body armor (yep). In addition, there's excessive use of slow-motion effects. Not exactly innovative. So don't expect a complicated story. It's all pretty predictable and simplistic. You can't say the dialogs are intelligent or interesting.The characters can be seen as very sterile. But claiming Rupert Friend just shows a total lack of emotion and nothing else, is kind of ridiculous, since this is a key feature of Agent 47. This manipulated agent can't comprehend the concept of emotions.

Hit-man provides amusement and brings mindless entertainment, but as a whole it's anything but a real hit.

More reviews here : http://bit.ly/1KIdQMT

nauru
Posts: 515
1667 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2009 1:41 am

Re: Hitman : Agent 47 (2015)

Post by nauru »

Yeah I think the problem with this film is the script, not casting Rupert Friend, as he's actually a great actor well suited to the role (see his work on Homeland).

The Hitman movies that have been made have all this unnecessary action and running around. This completely ignores the spirit of the games, where the point is to walk, not run, to within striking distance of your mark; and then to dispatch him silently without anyone noticing, hide the body, and leave the scene before anyone realizes anything is wrong. The highest scores in the game come from assassinating your target without firing a single shot, and without a single person being aware of your presence. Ideally you try to make the person's death look like an accident.

Much of the time in the game is spent blending in, hiding in plain sight; you take your time observing the details of your surroundings, and observing the details of people's behaviour, looking for opportunities to eliminate your target while leaving yourself a viable escape route. One wrong move could blow the whole operation, and there's no point in killing the person if you haven't figured out a route to cleanly slip away from the crime scene afterward. Sometimes you use a disguise to get closer to somebody or to get past a guard. But of course if you behave in a way that's out of character for your disguise people will notice; if you pull a gun out, people will scream to alert everyone in earshot that some guy's got a gun.

In short, Hitman is a classic stealth franchise, not an actioner.

Whoever produces, writes, and directs these Hitman films is clearly confused about what the Hitman franchise is actually about. And that's unfortunate because there's a lot of unrealized potential in the source material.

ikkegoemikke
Posts: 654
4306 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 3:31 pm

Re: Hitman : Agent 47 (2015)

Post by ikkegoemikke »

nauru wrote:Yeah I think the problem with this film is the script, not casting Rupert Friend, as he's actually a great actor well suited to the role (see his work on Homeland).

The Hitman movies that have been made have all this unnecessary action and running around. This completely ignores the spirit of the games, where the point is to walk, not run, to within striking distance of your mark; and then to dispatch him silently without anyone noticing, hide the body, and leave the scene before anyone realizes anything is wrong. The highest scores in the game come from assassinating your target without firing a single shot, and without a single person being aware of your presence. Ideally you try to make the person's death look like an accident.

Much of the time in the game is spent blending in, hiding in plain sight; you take your time observing the details of your surroundings, and observing the details of people's behaviour, looking for opportunities to eliminate your target while leaving yourself a viable escape route. One wrong move could blow the whole operation, and there's no point in killing the person if you haven't figured out a route to cleanly slip away from the crime scene afterward. Sometimes you use a disguise to get closer to somebody or to get past a guard. But of course if you behave in a way that's out of character for your disguise people will notice; if you pull a gun out, people will scream to alert everyone in earshot that some guy's got a gun.

In short, Hitman is a classic stealth franchise, not an actioner.

Whoever produces, writes, and directs these Hitman films is clearly confused about what the Hitman franchise is actually about. And that's unfortunate because there's a lot of unrealized potential in the source material.


Reading your explanation about the game "Hitman" is more thrilling than the movie itself :)
If only they used just the slightest portion of what you're describing, it would have been a much better movie !

Post Reply