Zombies Ruin Everything

At the time of writing this, I’ve just gotten back from watching Hitman. I said in a previous article (about Hitman) that would not be watching/reviewing the newest Hitman movie. I think I might have lied. Being that I’m not sure what I said, I may or may not have lied.

But whether or not I did, I can tell you for certain that this movie is everything I figured it would be. Not because I’d decided it in my mind before watching it, but because it really was just onscreen trash. Don’t worry, I won’t drag this out, I just need to make myself feel better.

I just don’t know what the people who make this stuff are thinking. Plenty of people know about the 2007 Hitman “effort” wherein director Xavier Gens was fired at some point during the shoot, replaced, and had the rest of the film made as explosioney as possible. This wasn’t good, and it was noticed.

Here we are years later with another Hitman movie nobody was asking for and they’ve gone all out with the explosions, shootouts, martial arts, and everything else that gets thrown into movie stew for the resulting cliche.

As bad as this movie is, it gets even worse as a fan. Things that just don’t make any sense on their own can also be seen as a slap in the face to the source material. And seeing as how the source material is a video game, that’s really saying something since it’s not like video games beg for subtlety and nuance in every shot. Only with Hitman, there is more to it than fistfights and car chases. So why didn’t they just use a property known for that kind of gameplay?

The movie itself is just a boiling pot of overused ideas, cheesy dialogue, senseless violence. And again, considering the movie is based on a game about stealth and options, we’re left with none of that here. It’s possible to get through every mission on Hitman without killing anyone but your target. If you’re good enough, the paper following the death will read as an accident. So aside from having the option of stealth, it’s also encouraged.

I felt chained to this as well. Though in the movie, the lengths of 47’s chains change depending on who he’s fighting.

One scene in the movie involved 47 and the girl he’s protecting attempting to escape a warehouse they’re hiding in (It gets even dumber but I won’t go into that) and as they’re sneaking away in the opposite direction from where the soldiers are heading (They weren’t actually sneaking but literally walking by), 47, in training her, asks her if they should run or fight.

She says “We should run!” to which he responds “No. We confront the enemy.” Or something to that effect. And proceeds to stupidly kill every guy in the warehouse a la Jason Voorhees. Aside from it just not making any sense, having loved the games, this is just one more major leap away from the game it was based on. If you’re able to sneak, you sneak. If you’re trying to escape, then escape. They actually stayed there to just kill everyone.

47 opens fire with an unsuppressed gun in the middle of a crowded subway. This should tell you everything you need to know. Even if you haven’t played the games, this is just stupid. At one point, it’s a really important, super big deal that this woman 47 is with make it through the airport. She does it (Though I don’t know how they know she’s gotten past undetected) only to have more people chase them because…when she thinks back…there was a camera outside that saw her get into 47’s car.

Gasp! OMG! 47 doesn’t mind staring at every camera to let the antagonists know where he is also making him look even dumber. Don’t get caught by the cameras if you want to be an elite agent. But me? I’m so good I just stare right at them and never have any consequences for it.

So entire scenes are null. The woman 47 is protecting is there to have 47 puke pages and pages worth of exposition so we can know all about the “underworld” she’s dealing with. Because she’s got that “super enhanced sense/reflex power” thanks to her dad. She even takes pills to suppress what she thinks is a condition she has when they’re really just keeping her from being the super awesome killing machine her father made her into. Which is exactly what the Wanted movie is. And the fights seemed like they’d watched John Wick a lot.

And then there’s this poster.

Look familiar?

I’m going to stop soon because I hadn’t realized how much I’ve actually typed at this point but I just needed to have some sort of therapy session from how awful this movie is.

Zachary Quinto is a character that also divulges a bunch of expository crap that’s easy to forget as soon as you’ve heard the words. When asked questions, he says stuff like “I don’t know much, but…” and then just starts talking about what seems like everything you could know on the subject.

In a following scene, he tells the main woman, that he’s there to protect her, not find her father like she wants to do. Then, as she’s trying to figure out where her father is still, he begins telling her “You need to tell me where your father is if you want my help!”

This isn’t done as a sort of ‘getting caught in his own lies’ deal since he’s supposed to be a villain, but rather more than one person was writing this and didn’t cross-examine what had already been put on paper.

“Also, I love you honey. Let’s not fight. But I HATE YOU!”

I’m not going to crap on the people in the movie. Their acting is ‘whatever’ throughout and I’m fairly certain since the director doesn’t have any other feature films to his name, this is another example of the studio placing the little guy in their big chair and pretending he has power while they do whatever they want with the kingdom.

Such a disappointment from what Hitman could be onscreen. The best thing I can say about this movie is that they did certain things that made me think if it had been taken a different direction, it could have been cool. But that’s not what the movie actually did. My official grade would have to be F if I were doing a review and that’s leaving out the differences between what the movie is and what the game is supposed to be.

This entry was posted on 09/01/2015 at 1:24 am and is filed under Reviews!, Whatever with tags Agent 47, Hitman movie sucks, Not a movie review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.