Hanna is a fresh spin on action-thriller genre

Intense as a hand grenade and masterfully constructed, Hanna is an adventure of mythic proportions disguised as a blood and bullets thrill ride. The movie opens with a young girl swathed in grey furs, hunting reindeer in the frozen forests of Northern Finland. The snow muffles her approach as, with bow and arrow, she nails an antlered male like a pro. “I just missed your heart," she whispers before she fires the death blow. As she’s skinning the kill, her father Erik (played by Eric Bana with a heavy German accent) creeps up and attacks her. Hanna defends herself as best she can, managing a few decent strikes. But she’s defeated with a judo throw and Erik leaves her lying on her back, her skin almost as pale as the white tundra. Her name is Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) and you will know her by the trail of dead creatures she leaves behind. With cobalt blue eyes, delicate features, and pale blonde hair (even her eyebrows), Hanna makes for a strange, waifish angel of death. But she doesn’t know it yet. When the movie starts, all we know is that Erik is teaching his teenage daughter the art of death dealing in both armed and unarmed ways.

Eventually, clues reveal that Erik is an ex-CIA man and that Hanna is being groomed to be an instrument of righteous vengeance. Putting her through extreme workouts, reading her encyclopedias in lieu of an education, coaching her in several languages, Hanna’s life IS her training. She is drilled day in and day out to the mantra of “Adapt or Die." The first turning point comes when Hanna herself finds out what all the training’s for, when she’s released into the world to find and eliminate Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), the CIA agent who killed Hanna’s mother. Make no mistake, though; this movie is so much more than a plot of familial retribution. With elements taken from The Professional, La Femme Nikita and The Long Kiss Goodnight, director Joe Wright (along with screenwriters Seth Lochhead and David Farr) interlaces these genre staples with allusions to fable and legend, especially those from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The result is a movie suffused with primeval energy, enabling Hanna to transcend genre formulas and the often overwrought platitudes they come with, to kick it into the realm of moral allegory. Quite notable is the original score by The Chemical Brothers, which is pitch perfect. Never intrusive and sometimes intentionally absent, when it does make itself felt it’s always informative, a crucial aspect to heightening the mood. The part where Hanna escapes from an underground CIA holding facility with just her wits and martial arts is set to an industrial, gut-jabbing track. Finding herself in Morocco, our young heroine needs to go to Germany. One of the most touching parts in her European trip is the unlikely friendship that blossoms between the young assassin and Sophie (Jessica Barden), an American teenager who’s with her family on vacation. Sophie takes an instant liking to the disarmingly innocent Hanna, who talks like a Colliers’ entry. Meanwhile, Marissa dispatches mercenaries to intercept Hanna, and the ensuing combat scenes come fast and brutal. At this point, more facts make themselves known and the viewer realizes that there is a bigger mystery behind the cloak and dagger war. Towards the end, when the twist is finally revealed, the fairy tale allusions take on a striking, dramatic context. Though no slouch in the acting department, Eric Bana is sometimes overshadowed by the strong, female leads. Saoirse Una Ronan, who turned 16 while the movie was being shot, is astonishingly impressive as Hanna with her preternatural calm, childlike innocence and propensity for teenage panic. You can easily see why she netted an Academy Award nomination for her previous work in Atonement (a movie that Wright also directed). “Joe Wright talked with me about how – as in a fairy tale – someone goes out into the world and it is overwhelming and scary and beautiful," said Ronan in the production’s media notes. “Hanna’s desire to see the world... happens at 100 miles an hour." Meanwhile, Cate Blanchett as Marissa Wiegler is the personification of efficient, methodical evil. She is both a modern Witch and the Big Bad Wolf. Severely tall in green flats, with a Midwest twang and an obsessively clean nature, she does it all in the name of American security. If you’re expecting some macho flick of clever one-liners and chock-a-block body count, then look elsewhere. But if you’re an action fan in the mood for something fresh and don’t mind kindling your head with a good story, then pack an open mind, some popcorn and get your synapses nicely blown up by Hanna. – YA, GMA NEWS Hanna opens Sept 28 in all major theaters. All photos courtesy of Columbia Pictures.