HANNA.

Yet another one of my most anticipated of the year I can check off from my list. But this time I got to go in with high expectations considering it has been getting pretty good reviews all around. But will mine add to it? Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) was raised in the woods by her father Erik (Eric Bana) to become a skilled assassin. Her mission? To take out a woman named Marissa Weigler (Cate Blanchett) before meeting back up with her father. Unfortunately, things aren't that simple.

I really wanted to love this movie. I really wanted to. I just... well, let's start with the positives. The cinematography and overall visual style is pretty excellent, but I wouldn't expect any different from the director of Atonement--another flawed film, but it looked quite nice. Also, the story was a fascinating concept, and I don't just mean the girl assassin trained in the woods bit. The reasoning behind everything is rather excellent, and--without spoiling anything--I'll just say it tries to ground something more fantastic into reality, and it does it pretty well.

Then there's the acting. Saoirse Ronan totally rocks it as Hanna. She's one of those actresses where, even if the rest of the film turns out to be rubbish, she's always a great watch. And while I don't think this movie was rubbish, she was certainly the best part of it. Eric Bana isn't in the movie too much after the beginning--he shows up here and there and comes back in with more purpose near the end--but he's good with what he does. And of course Cate Blanchett pulls off an amazing Tilda Swinton in this movie, though I'm not sure if that was the purpose. And the hitman guy bugged me for some reason--I think it was the actor, who probably could have been played better by Peter Stormare.

The first problem, however, is that the characters outside of Hanna are unexplored and dull. The most interesting characters after Hanna are actually the most normal--the family that Hanna joins up with after a while. There are hints that there could be trouble in paradise, but those are never really explored. And there's some fun comic relief involved. But Bana and Blanchett are just kinda... there.

So what we're given is nearly 2 hours focusing on the world through the eyes of this girl. That could be done really well... if the movie could make up its mind what it wants to do. Half the time it's trying to be an action thriller. The other half of the time, it wants to be this kinda-drama about a girl raised away from society who has to become more acquainted with the modern world and its peoples. Unfortunately, the two don't mesh well together. At times, the movie tries to force the thriller aspect by playing suspenseful music where there doesn't need to be. For the drama scenes, it'll start having her reactions to things... but then just drop it and won't explore further. So yeah, a big problem I found was that it was trying to be two different films and couldn't find a way to merge them better. Also, the fairy tale symbolism stuff could have been tightened up a bit.

Because of all of this, there were quite a few parts where the film seemed to drag. I was actually bored at times. Luckily, when it actually did these things right, it did them very well. The action sequences are a lot of fun and are well choreographed. The more dramedy-type things, when actually followed through with, were very good. So it just seemed to me that the script maybe needed another draft or two to fix a few things.

On the whole, I was entertained, but I thought it could have been better. It tried to do too many things, but there wasn't enough story or enough interesting situations to allow its run-time, leaving most of the film up to being carried by its characters--which, outside Hanna, weren't really strong enough to do so. Thankfully the production value was excellent. The movie was great to look at. The script had some really good moments. This movie had a lot of potential, and sometimes that potential comes through. But overall... it was just kinda dull.


Stop Saying OK! OK.

(P.S. I was actually gonna give it one higher originally. But by the time I got to the end of writing this review, I just felt so 'blah' about it. Maybe on a repeat viewing on DVD my opinion might go up a little. Hopefully. I still, at this point, really want to like this movie more. I could probably bump it up for its cinematic eye alone, but... I won't.)

Short Review: The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Premise: Closet homosexual and sociopath Tom Ripley gets a little too attached to a millionaire's son in Italy, leading to dangerous consequences.

Starring: Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

My Reaction: Stunning acting. Great writing. Astonishing camera work. Brilliant symbolic cinematography. However, a bit on the long side and dragged a bit in the first hour, as well as toward the end. But it had a great, powerful ending.


A Keanu 'Whoa'

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON.

When in most films with a gimmick, if you take the gimmick away and just have the story play as normal, the movie would be boring. The case with this movie is half and half. During the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina, a young woman (Julia Ormond) reads a diary to her dying mother, which tells the story of one Benjamin Button. Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) was born old and grows young as his life goes on. His father Thomas (Jason Flemyng) abandons him thinking him some kind of monster, and he’s adopted by a young black woman named Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), who runs an old folks’ home. But when Benjamin meets a young girl named Daisy (Elle Fanning, Madisen Beaty, Cate Blanchett), he immediately falls in love. The movie tells the story of their lives when they’re both with and without each other, with one getting older and the other younger.

Let me first discuss my opening statement. There were times when the movie’s story was so captivating that it would have been interesting with or without the reverse aging in play. But the other half of the time, the plot relied heavily on that idea. To make a long story short, the story was good, but it was really long with some parts that were probably unnecessary and could have been cut out. I was really into the movie most of the time, though. But during the last hour or so (maybe more like thirty minutes), I was really looking down at my watch, wondering how much longer the movie had. And a lot of what could have been cut came from the beginning of the movie, as it really was a slow start getting to the main plot of the story (though there really isn’t a plot, honestly. It’s more of a character study).

And the acting was good overall, especially with Brad Pitt (who I think is good in just about anything). But the most curious part of all dealt with the ages of the characters as the movie went on and how they looked amongst each other in correspondence to how old they should have looked. Now, it would take a lot more concentration on my part to really nit-pick at that, so I’ll leave that be. But there was one thing about the acting that I really didn’t like, and that was Cate Blanchett’s narration as an old woman. I could hardly understand a word she said, and she would always narrate important parts of the story, which upset me as I only understood half of what she was saying. And there is one age discrepancy I’d like to bring to attention, which is the young Daisy. When she’s first introduced, imdb has her listed as 7, though she’s played by a 10-year-old and talks like she’s older. And then toward the end of the movie, during some voice-over narration, there’s a mention of how she would have been about 5 when she first met Benjamin, and that threw me off completely.

And speaking of more visual aspects, and with Daisy, there was another discrepancy that bugged me. Benjamin makes note of how he’ll never forget Daisy’s bright blue eyes, and he repeats that a few times at the beginning. And Elle Fanning had these gorgeous bright blue eyes. But throughout the movie, Daisy’s eyes are continually changing color. The Daisy played by Madisen Beaty looked like her eyes were nearly brown, and Cate Blanchett’s eyes would go from pale blue to light blue. With all the money spent on Benjamin’s looks, they could have least thrown a few dollars in for some contacts. Though on the more positive side, the visuals were excellent. The older Benjamin (in looks) reminded me of the CGI from the Final Fantasy movies with such attention to detail. But the visual effects that blew me away the most weren’t of the older Benjamin, but of the younger. The way they made Brad Pitt look so young made even the similar process at the beginning of X-Men 3 look shabby.

But my favorite moments of the movie were the smaller moments. First, the man who had been struck by lightning and all his stories. Those had my audience laughing, and I thought they were a fun touch. But my favorite part in the entire movie was the brief segment around the middle of the movie, I suppose it was, when Benjamin tells a story of intersecting lives and how changing one thing could have changed everything, so therefore how every little action causes a greater reaction. I really loved that scene, and it really stuck with me during and after the film.

I really don’t see how people are comparing this to Forrest Gump (I guess that’s just for people who haven’t actually seen it), as I don’t think they’re anything alike at all. Not to mention that, technically, Benjamin Button was written first. I had no idea until the credits that it was based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. But then again, who the heck knows anything about what F. Scott wrote outside of The Great Gatsby. So the movie does have some faults, but it is an all-around great movie and great experience, especially during all the scenes with Katrina raging in the background, when you know what’s going to happen, even if the characters don’t (dramatic irony!). But anyway, I’d recommend the film. Another Brad Pitt success.

A Keanu 'Whoa'