Review: Hanna

Hanna
2011
110 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

Joe Wright's Hanna is so detached and so mechanically cold, that the viewer has no real stake in the narrative. It features, at its core, two opposing forces, both of questionable morality, who pursue each other all over Europe with a reckless and relentless abandon. If you have any sympathy at all, it won't be for the young assassin or her ice-cold nemesis, but rather for all the innocent saps who get killed along the way. The picture may be a stylish reworking of "Little Red Riding Hood", but at its core it is detached, resulting in a lack of investment. Despite the arty pretense and polished cast, Joe Wright's action debut is almost as hollow and junky as the kind of low-IQ mainstream thriller that it attempts to surpass.

2010 in Review: The Underrated

Let us continue our look back at the year in film with a token acknowledgement of ten films that were not quite as bad as their critical reputations. For the record, not all of the films below are good pictures. In a film criticism world that follows the sensationalized political landscape more and more, films are often judged as either unqualified masterpieces or pure failures. We have lost the ability to acknowledge that some films are just 'good', 'okay', or 'not that bad'. The following are in alphabetical order.

Death at a Funeral
This Neil LaBute comedy got hammered for daring to remake a seemingly untouchable 2007 Frank Oz picture, all while critics couldn't decide if said original was any good in the first place. I have not seen the original, but this American variation works as a genuinely funny family comedy. Chris Rock makes an excellent and sympathetic straight man, James Mardsen is a fine clown, Zoe Saldana looks dynamite while getting to be funny, and the cast is filled with notable character actors (Loretta Devine, Keith David, Danny Glover) who just happen to be African-American. The first third is sharper than the rest, but it's a consistently entertaining piece of filmmaking.