HANNA

Photos courtesy of Focus Features

A teenage girl must elude a group of assassins and a corrupt government agent in order to reunite with her father in the action-thriller, HANNA.

Hanna, played by Saorise Ronan, is not your average teen. She has been raised in a secluded forest by her father Erik, played be Eric Bana, and has been taught to survive on her wit, strength and cunningness. She is regularly trained to shoot, kill and defend herself against anything and everything that comes her way. Erik and Hanna live off their surroundings, with no modern conveniences, including electricity, running water or means of transportation. They eat what they kill, and kill at will.

During the conclusion of Hanna’s presumably decade-long training, Erik empowers Hanna to leave the confines of the forest when she believes she can survive on her own. Once she is, she’ll press a button to a device that will alert Marissa, a CIA agent, of their whereabouts, sparking a multi-country chase from the authorities.

HANNA dances to the beat of a different drummer, a pulsating techno one at that. This revenge thriller, an odd, but welcomed mix of action, violence, innocence, menace and even a touch of dry humor is a breath of fresh air compared to standard action fare. It feels unique and special in its own way, even if, as critics nationwide have pointed out, it borrows heavily from the tale of Little Red Riding Hood.

HANNA is a cross-country adventure leading our heroine across landscapes from Morocco to Finland to England to Germany. This trek is a strange, but enlightening one, revealing Hanna’s extra-sensory and fighting skills, while still underlining her inhibitions and reluctance towards human contact and everyday amenities.

The changing backdrop is not only aesthetically interesting, but it also presents new challenges for Hanna. Her escapes from lethal trackers pale in comparison to her stay at a Moroccan man’s house filled with foreign objects including a television, a coffee pot and a ceiling fan.

Although this intense thriller, a change of pace for ATONEMENT and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE director Joe Wright, delivers a solid punch, it also provides lighter and reflective moments. Wright cuts to the core of Hanna with a couple of intimate scenes, one where she nearly experiences her first kiss, and another one where she does. Wright’s delicate handling of these scenes illustrates that the director’s latest work isn’t too far of a departure thematically from his previous two.

The performances are uniformly good, but particularly from Ronan, Cate Blanchett as Marissa and Tom Hollander as Isaacs, an eccentric and ruthless assassin. Ronan, as she did in ATONEMENT and THE LOVELY BONES, again displays two-sides of a coin, one as a focused and determined young lady, and the other, an innocent and fractured child. Other actresses, be it young or old, seem to force these attributes upon us, Ronan reveals them effortlessly. She displays a maturity beyond her years.

HANNA is an exhilarating revenge thriller, an unpredictable one at that, and
one that I highly recommend.

Grade: B+

HOP

The Easter Bunny’s son has different plans than following in his father’s footsteps in the children’s film, HOP.

EB, voiced by Russell Brand, grew up on Easter Island learning how eggs and candy were made and prepared for delivery on Easter morning. Despite his egg education, EB realizes during his latter years, that being a drummer is what he aspires to be.

After his father expresses his disappointment, EB transports himself to Hollywood, where he hopes to make it big as a musician. Upon his arrival, the hare runs into Fred, a 30-something slacker played by James Marsden, who’s out of work and uninspired. After nearly running over EB in the suburbs, the guilt-ridden Fred allows EB to stay with him for the night.


Outside of the animated, made-for-TV HERE COMES PETER COTTONTAIL, made 40 years ago, I can’t recall a movie centered around the Easter Bunny. HOP attempts to do for the Easter Bunny what countless have done for Jolly Ole Saint Nick, crafting a big-budget tale in honor of Easter’s celebrity.

HOP does create quite a spectacle when it comes to the Easter Bunny’s factory on Easter Island. In many ways, HOP’s vision of the factory is one-part North Pole and one-part Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory, mixing every imaginable candy and contraption together into a visual delight.

The special effects, helping to create EB, his father and a band of rogue chicks, is top-notch, allowing the characters to look real, and yet unique and cartoon-like in their own way.

This is all great for the set-up and look of the picture, but the plot and human characters get in the way of a potentially fun film. Although the film is centered around EB, there’s nearly an equal amount of time spent on Fred. Marsden is adequate in a lackluster role, providing a broad figure who is accessible to kids, but nonetheless dull. Much of Fred and EB’s time is spent in the suburbs, where EB gets into a little mischief, but nothing compared to the trouble he could have caused on the lots of Hollywood’s biggest studios.

HOP isn’t a bad film, just one that plays it too conservative, and misses out on a lot of potential laughs and fun. This bunny just isn’t that funny.

Grade: C

PAUL

Photos courtesy of Universal Studios
Two British fan boys find their science-fiction tour of the States to be all to real in the extraterrestrial comedy, PAUL.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are Graeme and Clive, two avid comic book and science fiction fans that stumble upon Paul, an alien on the run from federal authorities. Paul, voiced by Seth Rogan, isn’t your average alien, a wise-cracking, pot smoking individual who’s only care is to avoid the feds.

The mismatched threesome are also joined on their adventure by Ruth, a Bible-thumping Westerner who finds her beliefs challenged by Paul. 　


PAUL not only stars Pegg and Frost, the talented tandem that has starred in such rollicking comedies as SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ, but the two also serve as the film’s co-writers. This is what makes PAUL all the more disappointing.

These funny men have taken the easy way out to laughs, relying on standard clichés and other films to provide inspiration for their own material. Pegg and Frost continue their stooge and comic duo well, but the rest of the film seems to cater to the standard.

Paul, is not only voiced by Seth Rogan, but is Seth Rogan. Wise-cracking, pot-smoking and just generally screwing around make up Paul’s personality. Much like other Rogan characters, they’re funny for awhile, but generally run out of steam. Only so many male genital jokes can garner laughs before ceasing to be funny.

The same can be said of Kristen Wiig’s Ruth, a former Bible-thumper gone wild, who finds freedom from religion to be an exhilarating ride with profanity-laced tirades. Once is pretty funny, twice not bad, but by the seventh expletive outburst the act becomes tiresome.

PAUL owes a lot to 80’s alien movies, from ET to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, and it gives the master of these films his proper due. PAUL uses these references as a tribute, but more often than not, it feels like a lack of creativity.

PAUL's earthly creative constraints ground a concept that could have been out of this world.

Grade: C

LIMITLESS

Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures
Bradley Cooper discovers he’s just a pill away from fortune and fame in the science-fiction thriller, LIMITLESS.

Cooper is Eddie Morra, an aspiring novelist with a serious case of writer’s block. His writer’s block isn’t just affecting his career, but also his financial situation and love life. His slacker lifestyle and mentality has just cost him his girlfriend Lindy, and his publisher is beginning to lose patience.

Enter Eddie’s ex-brother-in-law Vernon, who Eddie bumps into by chance. Vernon, a former drug dealer, now a self-proclaimed representative for a pharmaceutical company, tells Eddie that he has a pill that may solve his problems. Vernon explains that the pill he possesses, will allow Eddie to use 100% of his brain. After taking the pill, Eddie finds out that Vernon wasn’t kidding, and may have found the secret to success. 　

LIMITLESS is everything but that, a film which works at times, but never fully captures the promise that lies beneath its surface.

The screenplay, penned by Leslie Dixon, and based on the novel by Alan Glynn, capitalizes on the premise with a blistering dose of memory overload, allowing Eddie to recollect about past events, and using these memories as puzzle pieces to uncover his maximum potential in any given situation. This technique is thrilling, sometimes funny and often entertaining, but once these fleeting moments have passed, one longs for something more.

LIMITLESS restricts itself by becoming a one-trick pony, a good one, but one which could have provide something substantial. It scratches the surface of exploring a couple of interesting routes: our dependency on prescription or non-prescribed medication, and even better, how we define ourselves by success, or what makes us, us. Dixon’s screenplay hints at these aspects, but is more concerned on delivering a standard thriller.

Cooper does a nice job in a role that demands two Eddies: the scatter-brained, aloof slacker, and the well-adjusted, confident financial genius. His performance is crucial, as Eddie’s transformation is the bedrock for selling us on this unique, yet outlandish plot.

Director Neil Burger keeps the kinetic energy jumping throughout the majority of the picture, distracting one from the emptiness of this tale. LIMITLESS is a fairly thrilling science fiction fable that doesn’t live up to its title.

Grade: C+