maandag 25 januari 2016

Hitman : Agent 47 (2015)

Summary :
Agent 47 is an elite assassin who was genetically engineered from conception to be the perfect killing machine, and is known only by the last two digits on the barcode tattooed on the back of his neck. He is the culmination of decades of research and forty-six earlier Agent clones -- endowing him with unprecedented strength, speed, stamina and intelligence. His latest target is a mega-corporation that plans to unlock the secret of Agent 47's past to create an army of killers whose powers surpass even his own.

Genre : Action
Country : USA/Germany/Singapore

Cast :
Rupert Friend : Agent 47
Zachary Quinto : John Smith
Hannah Ware : Katia

Director : Aleksander Bachavid Ryan Keith

My opinion

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

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 everytime there's an attempt to make a film adaptation of a videogame. 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 Hitman 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 "Hitman : 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.

"Hitman: 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 subdermal 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 dialogues 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.