Review of Hitman: Agent 47 (2015) by Hiroaki S — 19 Aug 2015

This is a reboot of the failed 2007 movie based on the famous assassin stealth game franchise, starring Rupert Friend (replacing Paul Walker who had passed away) as the titular character, Hannah Ware, and Zachary Quinto.

I'll be frank here: I've never played any of the Hitman games, so I can't say much as to how faithful this movie is to the game franchise, but I can tell you that it opens with a first act that's action-packed, intense, suspenseful, and smart, to the point where it reminded me of the Jason Bourne films (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

However, after a certain "revelation", the film's pace drops quite a bit during the 2nd act, and everything started to look "video-gamey"...by which I mean they seemed to dumb things down a lot, and tried to explain everything (with a little bit of character development thrown in), even at points where I felt it was unnecessary.

By the climax towards the end, the action and pacing had picked up a little, albeit not to the level seen during the first act. The 3 main actors' performances were average, with Hannah Ware perhaps standing out a little bit more than the others.

The end result is a film that is OK but rather unbalanced. I know a lot of people have their hopes up high for this film to be the first solid, credible video game movie to date; however, I can say that while we're not quite there yet, we're getting closer.

Hiro's Score: 3/5.