‘Hitman Agent 47’: Horrible reboot effort, rips off James Cameron and bores audience
Zachary Quinto’s performance in the first part of the film as John Smith is likely the most positive aspect of the Hitman reboot, Hitman: Agent 47. Rupert Friend takes over for Justified‘s Timothy Olyphant years later with this inane effort to create a franchise of films based on the video game.
In Agent 47, Quinto’s Smith is helping a young woman (Hannah Ware) find her father (Rolf Kanies), who is a mastermind biochemist and the key to restarting the Agent program. The Agents are genetically bred assassins, void of fear and basic emotion, but are now disbanded across the globe. Agent 47 has been given the task of killing daddy (and the girl if need be) in Terminator fashion.
Of course, James Cameron may want to consider suing over the number of plot points and twists which are lifted out of the first two Terminator films. Sadly it’s Quinto who falls victim to the derivative story and his performance becomes forgettable and nonsensical in the latter portion of the film.
There is plenty of action and gun play, but nothing shocking or interesting enough to keep your mind off of the blatant Audi product placement which appears over and over again. Friend shouldn’t be blamed for this failure, having little to work with. The true crime is no one on the creative realize how much he’d look like Orlando Bloom or a young Charlie Sheen with his head shaved — there are moments that it’s outright distracting.
Ware is bland and hot engaging enough for us the engage the character and care about her journey. Thomas Kretschmann’s wasted role in Avengers: Age of Ultron looks like an Oscar performance compared to this brief and forgettable bad guy role.
Director Aleksander Bach’s first feature will ensure that he can land a long career in Hollywood helming the second rate action films of mediocre franchises (like a Taken 4 or another Transporter film — yes, I know they are releasing that.) Die hard fans should have known this would be a bust when writer Skip Woods was put in charge of the screenplay (He’s behind X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the first Hitman film, the A-Team reboot and Swordfish).
Overall Hitman: Agent 47 receives 1 1/2 stars out of 5 stars
Add a star if you are looking for plotless entertainment with a spy genre feel (this includes myself), but keep the expectations really low.
