By frankie farrar-helm/entertainment editor
Don’t let her gentle name deceive you. Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a cold-blooded killer, and all she needs is her bare hands.
Photo courtesy Focus Features
Not many 16-year-old girls can hunt for their food, speak five languages or do 100 push-ups — but Hanna can.
Hanna is a remarkable story about a teenage girl born into a life of espionage and adapt-or-die discipline. The titular heroine, who has lived a solitary life deep in a forest of Finland with her former CIA-agent father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana), embarks on a vengeful mission that takes her across continents.
Trained to survive in harsh climates and fight in hand-to-hand combat, the young assassin is hunted by deadly enemies as she draws closer to her main target — a callous CIA operative named Marissa Weigler (Cate Blanchett), who has mysterious, top-secret past dealings with her father. As she hitchhikes with a bohemian English family traveling along North Africa and Europe in a van, Hanna learns about herself and many cultures outside of the isolated woods she has known.
The film brilliantly distinguishes and demonstrates the two sides of Hanna. One side of her is kind, charming and curious. Her other side is a quick, ruthless, natural killing machine.
The plot is original and worthy of note. Director Joe Wright (Atonement, The Soloist) creates surreal visuals and an anti-establishment attitude that make the film a radically innovative action experience. Hanna includes twisting, spinning camera angles, flashy lights and multicultural settings, making each scene unpredictable.
With an original score by British duo The Chemical Brothers, the music couldn’t be better suited for the film. The soundtrack is a mixture of charismatic techno, industrial, upbeat electronica and computer-generated beats. When applied, scenes transform from tranquil and motionless into a full-blown, up-and-down adrenaline rush.
Irish Academy Award nominee Ronan (Atonement) delivers her best performance yet. Viewers can expect to see her face in many films to come.
Oscar-winning actress Blanchett (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and award-winning Bana (Troy, Hulk) play characters outside of their usual domain, but nonetheless deliver exceptional performances as well.
Complete with high-speed car chases, emotional fight scenes, Moroccan dance routines and gingerbread houses, Hanna is an incredibly diverse film.
Though the beginning is tedious and longer than most, Hanna quickly spins into an adventure viewers won’t want to miss for even a second.