Hitman

[Kingdom]

This film didn't carry the hype that previous video game turned into films have had. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and Silent Hill were all big deals and mostly fell flat (for the record, I loved Silent Hill). Ok, so now, there's Hitman. I have never played the game and in fact, I have never seen any footage from the game. So pretty much unlike mostly every other video game movie I have seen, I had no idea what to expect other than a lot of death and destruction.

I did do a little background research just to get some kinda idea. What struck me as odd is the choice to cast Timothy Olyphant as the lead character. Let's be honest, Agent 47 had Jason Statham written all over it. Or Vin Diesel maybe. Instead, they go with an actor who's known for
1. Drug-maniac from "Go"
2. Drug lacky from "A Man Apart"
3. Ecstasy psycho ex from "The Girl Next Door"
4. Techno-terrorist in "Live Free or Die Hard"
5. Psycho from "Scream 2"
6. TV stints with "Deadwood", "Samantha Who", and "Sex and the City"

While he has been in action movies, he's never really been apart of the action. But he's got the psycho end of things down pat.

The Bad of the Movie:
-I found the lead chick to be.. fairly ugly. Granted, she's nude quite a lot in the film and that's a go getter for any guy but I was disinterested in her from the get-go.
-Her acting was also a bland cardboard.
-The dialogue was by far the weakest thing of the film, and that's more on the writing. I'm sorry but the interractions between Interpol and Russian agents were beyond lame.
-Henry Ian Cusak (aka Lost's Desmond) was wasted. Literallllllly.
-The cloudy and pretty ambigious origins of Agent 47 and the whole "Organization". Sure, if you played the games you prolly know but the majority of the public have not, including me. But at the same time....

The Good of the Movie:
-It was not bogged down with an origin story. While some parts were "huh?" I didn't care. We didn't waste 40 minutes of showing how Agent 47 grew up to be Agent 47. Simple flashbacks were enough.
-The grounded action. No monsters, robots, mutants, etc. instead the movie was more in veign of "Shooter", all out action in the form of bang bang boom. And clash, hiyyyah, pow. I like that, especially good ones. John Rambo was an example of a band one.
-Tim Olyphant worked as Agent 47. If you wanted the Bourne movies to hit rated R status, this was like that.
-A plot that made sense.
-Dougray Scott as... a good guy?
-Wasn't a 2.5 hour long movie.. 90 some minutes, and I watched the unrated one so I have no idea what wasn't in the original but that's short and sweet and very much to the point.


Wasn't a blockbuster and prolly had little critical support, but in terms of video game films, it pretty much tops anything we've had to this point.

[Porter]

This is the best Video Game to Movie conversion so far.