Movie Review: Hanna

GRADE: A/B+

The premise of Hanna is, "A 16-year-old who was raised by her father to be the perfect assassin is dispatched on a mission across Europe, tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives."


Directed by Joe Wright (Atonement), Hanna is a wonderfully dark film with beautiful screen shots and lots of action. It was filmed on location in Europe and Morocco and the scenery was quite lovely to see. Hanna, played by Saoirse Ronan, is a 16 year old girl being raised by an ex-CIA assassin, her father Erik (played by Eric Bana). Erik has taught Hanna how to hunt, how to defend herself with various weapons and self-defense methods, and home-schooled her with only an encyclopedia and a book of fairy tales.


The bad guy (or woman in this movie) is ruthless intelligence operative Marissa Wiegler (played stunningly by Cate Blanchett). Several times in this movie I kept wondering why this woman was after Hanna. This was revealed later in the movie, but it did keep you guessing what her motive was for about 3/4's of the film. I thought Cate did a wonderful job playing Marissa. She is really an amazing actress and I think a lot of people will see this movie just to see Cate act her butt off as the villainess.


This movie was full of action and intrigue. One can almost feel bad for Hanna, the baby assassin, as she struggles to survive while people keep trying to kill her. I didn't expect to like this movie as much as I did, but I thought it was great. Definitely a must go-see...