'Hitman' sequel delivers '47' shades of slay
My guess would be that Skip Woods and Michael Finch binge-viewed "Terminator 2," "The Matrix," "Minority Report" and other genre films right before grinding out their mercilessly derivative screenplay for this sequel to the mercilessly derivative 2007 action thriller "Hitman."
Aleksander Bach's "Hitman: Agent 47" marks the first movie opening this weekend to be based on a video game, the second to be directed by a TV commercial maker ("American Ultra" is the other) and the only film to double-dare other Hollywood studios to sue for theft of intellectual properties.
In the original, Timothy Olyphant played Agent 47, an assassin genetically configured to never experience pain, love, fear or emotional line readings, but to be an efficient killing machine at the disposal of an international organization so secret, critics couldn't even write about it.
In this sequel, Showtime's "Homeland" star Rupert Friend takes over as Agent 47, a walking, running, jumping arsenal about to interface with the story's troubled main character, Katia (Hannah Ware).
She's not only the daughter of the supersecret scientist responsible for creating the Hitman agents, she suffers from periodic flash-forwards to events about to occur, like Samantha Morton's pre-cog from Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report."
Katia has visions of Agent 47 coming to kill her, but he's too busy shooting, stabbing and breaking everyone else's bones to get to her.
Fortunately, Katia meets Mr. Smith (erstwhile Mr. Spock, Zachary Quinto), who ominously says, "If you don't do what I say, he will kill you!" (Apparently, the line "Come with me if you want to live!" was already taken.)
Smith, working for a company called Syndicate International (apparently, the "Syndicate" was already taken by "Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation"), pledges to protect Katia. From what? From whom? Why?
All that becomes a little murky in "Hitman: Agent 47," but from what I am able to construct, the bad guys - led by a mysterious fellow called "The Chairman" - want to find Katia's dad so they can force him to make more superhuman assassins. The good guys want to find Katia's dad first to stop this.
Why Katia's dad would be the only person capable of creating agents is just one of the many mysteries here, along with "How exactly does an international assassin blend into a crowd while dressed like an undertaker with a giant bar code tattooed to the back of his nearly shaved head?"
In this twisty, turny tale, Agent 47 winds up protecting Katia and astonishing her with his MENSA-like powers of observation.
"Tell me what you know!" Katia shouts.
"I know you are in danger!" he replies, coming to this conclusion after a kajillion people try to kill her before lunch.
"Hitman: Agent 47" packs plenty of action sequences: car chases, fistfights, "Matrix"-like martial arts faceoffs and gunbattles between sharpshooter Agent 47 and mercenary idiots who not only can't hit targets, they never think to shoot the tires on escaping cars.
These initially exciting sequences soon lapse into repetitive listlessness because commercial-maker Bach is all about the visuals, not suspense or drama. His characters prove to be far too superhuman for us to fear for their safety.
Ware makes for a credible action heroine who doesn't need cheesecake to serve with cans of whoop-butt.
Friend cuts a striking, slender action figure, but lacks the resonant vocal qualities and sheer gravitas to carry off a character as formidable and menacing as Agent 47.
So, what could be next? Forty-six "Hitman" prequels directed by the same guy?
As the Terminator would say, he'll be Bach.
“Hitman: Agent 47”
★
Starring: Rupert Friend, Hannah Ware, Zachary Quinto, Ciaran Hinds
Directed by: Aleksander Bach
Other: A 20th Century Fox release. Rated R for language, violence. 85 minutes