Hanna (film): Decent, but with lots of loose ends and a very familiar story

This film is not new but it is new on Netflix (at least in my region.) It's an action film with some aspects of mystery and espionage. In many ways it is kind of a re-hash of Borne but with a girl as the lead. It's entertaining but has some crap elements to it as well.

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The movie begins in a very cold environment with a young girl hunting on her own. it quickly becomes very clear that this girl is undergoing vigorous and unorthodox training at the hands of her father in an intentionally remote location because they are hiding from something. Her father Erik (Eric Bana) is clearly from the "outside world" because he knows multiple languages and is aware of modern technology and even has some of it. However, he has chosen to shelter Hanna from this for reason that are kinda explained as the movie carries on.

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Once she is "ready" Erik has a beacon that will alert the CIA to their position and leaves it up to Hanna to decide when and if the beacon will be activated. Of course she activates it one day and the plan that Hanna and her father have prepared over the past decade swings into motion.

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Pros of the film

• The action comes a pretty steady pace so you never get a chance to be bored
• The music is intertwined into the entire production in a very artistic fashion
• Hanna's (Saoirse Ronan) portrayal of a cutesy, yet secretly deadly teenage assassin is done wonderfully. She is Irish / American yet absolutely nails foreign accents

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Cons

• The film is pretty predictable: Underdogs enter situation, get upper hand, lose upper hand, meetup with bosses and cut them down one-by-one.
• There are some strange directorial decisions made to implement lighting to match the aforementioned musical direction that while it was visually appealing, doesn't make much sense such as when a CIA headquarters all of a sudden (and for no particular reason) has flashing, almost, disco type lighting. The director also decided to film some scenes with the camera flipping upside down in a circular motion, which doesn't really add anything to the scenes.
• The baddies conveniently catch up with our heroes throughout and there is no explanation or reasoning behind why it is that they know where to look in the first place (this always irritates me in movies.) At one point a woman who normally works in an office and is wearing heels catches up with Hanna who has been training for years in cardio and it doesn't make even a little bit of sense.

_{from the official Movieclips channel}

The above clip shows some of the integration of the running soundtrack that keeps the tension high and works really well. Overall, I think this movie is worth seeing but I wouldn't run out there to dig it up. It's ok, but it almost feels like one of those lazy and unoriginal reboots of a previous film with new and female leads.

I don't know if they were planning on turning this into a franchise, it appears as though they might have had that in mind, but a lot of loose ends don't get tied and perhaps they are planning on a sequel. It pulled in more than $60 million worldwide on a $30 million budget. I don't know if this is a big enough profit for consideration as a trilogy. I guess we'll see.

My overall rating! 6.5 / 10