“I don’t know what she is.  Sometimes she acts like the heroine of an epic fantasy novel and sometimes she acts like she’s about nine years old, which might be cute if she didn’t kill people.”  Technically this quote was originally written by Austin Grossman about a fairy in his book Soon I Will Be Invincible, but this blend of innocence and danger is what keeps Hanna from losing itself amongst the masses of other films of this genre.

Hanna gets its name from the protagonist, a teenage girl who was raised in the woods of northern Finland by her father, learning skills to survive on her own.  However, “survival skills” are much more than the basic learning to live off of the land skills like hunting and turning furry animals into fashion pieces.  In addition to these merit badges she also adorns the badge of a trained weapon, and for reasons unknown she is about to be set free in Europe as she revisits the past of her family and puts her knowledge to work. [Read more...]

Joe Wright’s latest, Hanna, is an assassin picture on the surface but at its heart is a film of self discovery after being trapped in isolation your whole life.  It all works really well, but after one viewing I feel like it is missing that special something to make it incredible.

The film is fun, suspenseful, and moves at a whip’s pace and I have next to nothing to complain about the film.  But something is missing that makes me go, “that movie was incredible.” As we follow Hanna from her isolated life in the woods of Finland and out into the real world as she travels across Europe we get to watch her grow and discover the world and everything in it.  The girl was raised with nothing to inform her about the outside world except her father, an encyclopedia, and a ragged copy of some Grimm fairy tales that was her mother’s.  Hanna and her father, Erik, are in hiding from the US government, specifically a Marissa Wiegler, who wants Hanna alive for mysterious reasons. [Read more...]