Movie Review: Hitman - Agent 47

Eight years ago the first attempt at adapting the Hitman series of games hit the big screen. I do not remember much of it other than I did not like it. There had been some hope for it, the lead was decent actor (Timothy Olyphant), plus it was helmed by Xavier Gens, who was coming off the excellent horror film Frontier(s). However, that is neither here nor there. What we are faced with now is a reboot of the franchise with a new lead and a new director, not to mention a new story. Unfortunately, the results are not any better.



Hitman: Agent 47 was directed by first timer Aleksander Bach. As for the screenwriting duties, they were handled by Skip Woods, who also wrote the 2007 edition, and Michael Finch who has previously worked on November Man and Predators. Now, if you wanted this to be interesting, you may have wanted to try bringing in an entirely new creative team. I question how wise it was to bring Woods back into the fold considering the first film is generally considered a failure.

This is not a movie I really want to spend a lot of time on. This is not to suggest it is the worst thing I have seen, it isn't as I have seen a few films that were much worse than this. The problem is that it is just there, not really doing much of anything, content to be a non entity. To be fair, I am not a gamer, perhaps knowing the game would have made it more enjoyable? Still, that would not let it off the hook as bad filmmaking. It has some decent ideas of what makes the individual and the ethics of scientific meddling in human genetics.

While this could have been an interesting science fiction tinted action film, it is more content to just plod along with action sequences that are chopped up into a messy mash of quick bits that sort of resemble fights, car chases and explosions that are obvious CGI creations, and characters that talk on a third grade level. It is all just boring and inconsequential. However, it did leave me with a desire to rewatch its predecessor to see of it as bad as I remember. This is easily skippable late summer filler.

Not Recommended.