Review: Hitman: Agent 47 BD + Screen Caps

THE MOVIE – 2.25/5

After its lackluster box office take, tallying less than $100 million worldwide, 2007’s Hitman had to also contend with poor reviews both critically and from the masses, particularly fans of the best-selling video game series. Well, Fox decided to take one more crack at it with Hitman: Agent 47 but the results were more or less the same and to show how much want there was for another, it scrapped a mere $83 million worldwide thus placing the proverbial nail in this franchise’s coffin.

Note: This review contains major plot spoilers.

The film opens with 47 (RUPERT FRIEND) at work taking down supposedly well-trained guards in an effort to gather information on a woman we later meet, named Katia (HANNAH WARE) whom nefarious organization the Syndicate (no relation to the ones from Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) who have sent John Smith (ZACHARY QUINTO) to, at first blush, protect Katia from a determined Agent 47 but later their true intentions are to use Katia to locate her father, whom she has not seen or heard from in years, so they may re-institute the Agent program.

47 manages to rescue her but there’s more to Katia as her father apparently implemented in her the same skill sets as the agents, that is the ability to foresee what is coming around every corner. So, being an anti-hero or just a plain jackass, 47, after she panics at the entire situation going on, knocks her out and upon waking up is tied to a chair in front of a friggin’ jet engine. After some of bonding, literally able to see each other’s pasts which are connected, to which he earns some trust with her; he leaves and turns on the engine where she must escape. With friends like these…

The two, after taking on a sworm of nameless, faceless baddies, and finding out that John Smith is more like a T-1000 being infused with a metal substance, travel to Singapore to meet Katia’s father, Dr. Piotr Litvenko (CIRIAN HINDS). It just so happens that he’s been hiding in plain sight as Singapore is where Syndicate HQ resides, headed by a man named Le Clerq (THOMAS KRETSCHMANN).

Hitman: Agent 47 is yet another failed attempt to bring the popular video game series to life and having not seen the Olyphant version in years, so I don’t know how it compares but I can’t think it was much worse than this one. Although the production values aren’t bad, even with some iffy looking visual effects (at best), the casting of Rupert Friend didn’t quite work and the action just seemed far too familiar and at times some of the kills seemed to come from the mind of Jigsaw.

Hannah Ware at least seemed to give a decent enough performance for what little she was given and the situations her character is placed in while Zachary Quinto makes for an utterly forgettable villain as does Thomas Kretschmann who is a talented enough actor who deserved more than this.

The film was directed by Aleksander Bach marking his directorial debut and came from the music video and advertising sector. The script was co-written by Skip Woods who also wrote the screenplay of the original Hitman and also was responsible for Swordfish (a personal guilty pleasure of mine) and the utterly incompetently made and all around awful A Good Day to Die Hard. Not sure why studios continue to hire the guy (who may or may not exist) but Hitman: Agent 47 is the latest failure.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 2.25/5

This release comes with a reflective slip cover. Inside is the redemption code for the Digital HD copy and a mini comic book prelude.

Deleted Scenes (4:03; HD) – In all, we only get three scenes though based on the trailer, there was an alternate scene for Katia with her “test”. There’s nothing here of interest except for another stupid action scene involving a wrecking ball.

The Hit Counter is a feature that runs with the movie and tallies the number of injuries and kills and the type of deaths (headshots, signature kills and non-target casualties). Along with this are some storyboard concept artwork, pre-viz animation and pop-up trivia.

Re-Imagining Hitman (6:02; HD) looks at the reboot to the movie series and contains standard interviews with Rupert Friend, Hannah Ware, Zachary Quinto, Ciaran Hinds, Director Aleksander Bach and others.

Ultimate Action: Staging the Fights (6:54; HD) goes behind-the-scenes and shows how the fight scenes were filmed.

Hitman: Agent 47 Comic is a series of still images from the comic book that is included with this release.

Making of the Comic Book (1:49; HD) goes into how the comic was drawn and how it lines up with the movie as a prequel.

Promotional Featurettes (6:28; HD) are five mini-featurettes including: Around the World, Ultimate Hitman, Who is John Smith, Creating Katia Van Dees and Iconic, each one dealing with a different aspect of making the film from the location scouting, casting the part of Hitman and other topics.

Also included is a Gallery of still images from the movie, both promotional and behind-the-scenes, a Poster Gallery and two Theatrical Trailers (4:52; HD).

VIDEO – 4.5/5

AUDIO – 4.75/5

OVERALL – 2.5/5