Turns out August is the
month of unnecessary, unwanted, downright terrible reboots. First it was Fantastic
Four which continues to be ground into pulp, and now this week it's Hitman:
Agent 47, a relaunch of the 2007 bullets, bar codes, and bald heads flick
that was decent enough, but since when has decent ever been enough? At
least the first film had the novelty of being first; this one has the
distinction of being a miserable, generic retread of a totally middling
predecessor.
Not that there should be
any surprise how uninspired Hitman: Agent 47 turned out,
because that seems to be the stock and trade of co-writers Skip Woods and
Michael Finch. Woods wrote the first Hitman movie, along with X-Men
Origins: Wolverine and the atrocious A Good day to Die Hard,
while Finch delivered the lamest Pierce Brosnan movie ever with The
November Man. They make movies that are both mind-numbingly simplistic yet
nonsensical. The only thing they really expect you to understand is the sound
of gunfire and the look of a really cool suit. 
Rupert Friend takes over
the role of Agent 47, an emotionless assassin bred to be an unstoppable killing
machine. He's even got a barcode tattooed on the back of his neck; although
they should have stamped this conveyor belt flick with one, too. Agent 47 is
kind of like John Wick, only a lot less cool. He's tasked with
finding Katia Van Dees (Hannah Ware), a mysterious woman tracking down a
man she doesn't know, yet seems to know everything about. Her search has also
attracted the attention of John Smith (Zachary Quinto), another nicely-clothed
gent who claims to be trying to protect her from Agent 47. Somebody's a liar.
The movie's called 'Agent 47' for a reason. This isn't The Terminator. 
In other words, don't
get too bogged down in the momentary mystery. Instead spend that time wondering
how a movie with such a crazy high body count and a digital blood budget in the
millions could be so boring. There are some visually interesting kills here;
guys get sucked into jet engines and squashed by giant clamps; but first-time
director Aleksander Bach isn't able to elevate any of it beyond the familiar.
Even the performances are uniformly dull. Granted, Friend is meant to be cold
and unfeeling so it kind of comes with the territory. The role was originally
played by Timothy Olyphant who gave it a certain steeliness, and Paul Walker
was meant to take on the role before his untimely passing. Ware, whose
character is supposedly of a superior ability to Agent 47, doesn't get much of
an opportunity to show it, and doesn't make an impression when she does. Thomas
Kretschmann plays a powerful figure who plans to make more super agents just
like Agent 47, but all he really does is sit behind a flashy desk. Quinto
seems drawn to playing emotionless Spock-type characters but he always seems to
be having fun at it. Too bad his fun won't make its way to the audience, who
will instead be worrying they'll try to adapt the other seven games in the
franchise.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
