Hitman: Agent 47 ** (2015, Rupert Friend, Hannah Ware, Zachary Quinto) – Movie Review

A grim, shaven-headed Rupert Friend stars an elite assassin genetically engineered to be the perfect killing machine, with huge strength, speed, stamina and intelligence.

Director Aleksander Bach‘s Hitman reboot, based on the video game series, is notable for its fast-paced violent action sequences and endless ruthless killings, delivered in flashily effective CGI images masterminded by Industrial Light & Magic.

It’s not nearly so notable for Skip Woods’s thin, regulation story and lame, dialogue-iffy screenplay, which make all the non-action scenes a chore to sit through. That story has Agent 47 taking on a mega-corporation that plans to unlock the secret of his past to create an army of even greater killers whose powers surpass even his own.

It’s not exactly much of an acting role for Friend, who gets by just by staring and looking vaguely menacing, but Hannah Ware is OK as the mysterious badass young woman who teams up with him, and Zachary Quinto is quite good as another creepy, nasty agent who says he’s out to save her.

After familiar-feeling globe-trotting from Berlin to Singapore, both looking stunning, there’s a predictable climax involving an epic battle with a deadly foe bent on world domination, followed by a teaser for a possible sequel, which seems as unlikely as the plot.

Not enough imagination, effort or skill have gone into providing a fresh, vibrant and coherent screenplay to make this work well, but it’s passable as a brain-in-neutral action thriller.

Remember Hitman (2007) with Timothy Olyphant as Agent 47? No, didn’t think so!

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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