Video game movies have been given a bad rap for years, almost as long as licensed video games have been in the works. Thankfully time is starting to swing in their direction now with people taking the movies seriously, I’m looking at you Michael Fassbender (Assassin’s Creed). Hitman: Agent 47 is definitely a step in the right direction. While not a perfect video game to movie adaptation, it’s a very well done movie that didn’t get too outlandish or stray away from the source material, unlike Resident Evil. Overall, I enjoyed the movie – not so much as it was pure Hitman – because it was a great action movie that gave some cool nods to the Hitman franchise.
First off, I do want to say that I watched this movie in the theater. I enjoyed it there, but man this Blu-ray really made the movie look good. It was crisp, clean and I could see every blood spatter and bead of sweat on Rupert Friend’s bald head. The action scenes looked amazing and sounded great. However, the only negative with the sound is that sometimes I had to turn up the volume because I couldn’t hear the dialogue. Once the dialogue was over and there was a huge action scene, my ears began to bleed before I could grab the remote and compensate. That’s the only huge concern I had with the transfer from the theater to the small screen; it isn’t too big of an issue, but just be prepared to have some Jedi skills with the volume control so you don’t wake the neighbors.
The movie itself is pretty good. To me it isn’t a Hitman movie per say, but it does feature some elements and shots that look to be pulled directly from the game. The opening scene is what the entire movie should have been: traps and stealth kills. This scene also has some of the most iconic Hitman shots that look just like the game; keep an eye out for those because the director nailed them. After that opening scene, the stealth takes a backseat to huge action scenes. The premise of the whole movie is that an evil corporation (Syndicate) wants to figure out how to make Agents so that they can have an army of them. Once the project was put on ice in the ’60’s the main mind of the whole project disappeared, but he left the world a daughter. A daughter, Katia Van Dees, who has been programmed to be extremely useful, to herself and to the evil Syndicate. Agent 47, aptly played by Rupert Friend,is tasked to kill her. He is foiled however as she is saved by John Smith, played by Zachary Quinto. The fights between Agent 47 and Smith are amazing; they’re great battles that you wouldn’t really see in the game, but instead you get to watch 2 superhuman killers fist-fight until one outsmarts the other.
The movie takes you all over the world; you get to see the Berlin and the almost perfect city of Singapore, and these two agents battle it out for Katia Van Dees’ trust and her father. As the movie progresses you get to see more into the world of Agent 47, how smart he is and why he is considered as a legend to other characters in the movie. The story does get a little far fetched as you watch, but the action scenes get bigger and bigger until the amazing climax. This movie is a great action movie, but it needed more stealth and creative kills than the huge action set pieces. I would have been much happier with more of the precision and sneak kills than the full on fist fights with Smith. If you are a fan of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin or Hitman: Blood Money, you may not like this iteration of the character due to the heavy stealth in those games. However, if you were a huge fan Hitman: Absolution, where you could go stealth or run and gun, this may be the perfect Hitman for you. And if you are neither of those and just love pulse pounding action movies you should grab this Blu-ray and enjoy all the explosions and gunfire that ensues from Agent 47’s mission.
Blu-ray Special Features
Here comes the obligatory special features that sometimes feel thrown together for certain Blu-ray releases. This unfortunately is the case when it comes to Hitman: Agent 47 on Blu-ray. This disc has many special features, but none really popped out to me or left me needing to re-watch. The first special feature that I looked at were the “deleted scenes;” they spared no expense and gave us three whole scenes to enjoy. One of the scenes made no sense in the grand scheme of things, and I’m guessing that it was part of a different plotline that was dropped from the final film. The other two scenes were interesting; it seems like they got pulled from the movie so that two similar scenes that were way better replaced them. Instead of Smith and 47 fighting in an airplane hanger, they fought at a construction site in this deleted scene. The airplane hanger replacement was much better and much more action packed. In result, it was a great switch for the movie.
The next feature that I looked at was called “The Hit-Counter” which restarted the movie for me and instead of having an audio commentary, it showed pop ups. If you are old enough to remember Pop Up Video, and you actually enjoyed it, then this is the special feature for you. The pop ups talk about the game development and so on, which would have been interesting for me had I not already known about it. After that there is “Re-Imagining Hitman,” which is a small documentary about how the director took the movie from game form into an action packed spectacle. You get to see some behind-the-scenes footage from the movie while people talk about how great Hitman is and how they wanted to make sure his suit, ballers and bar code were perfect. This documentary was about five minutes long and really didn’t give any insight into the movie.
The documentary that follows, “Ultimate Action: Staging the Fights,” is somewhat humdrum as well. We are able to see the fight director take Friend and Quinto through some fights, but the feature is so short, there is nothing to learn about the fights. The only thing that I really learned is that Friend did 95 percent of his stunts and fights, which I think is pretty brave after watching these fights. Hitman: The Comic Book follows, which is a nice scrolling comic book on the screen that tells viewers how Agent 47 got to the point where he is at the beginning of the movie. After that there is a very short documentary about the making of the digital comic book with the writer and the artist. Nothing new or interesting is gleaned from it.
The special features contains Five Promotional Featurettes that were most likely shown to movie theatres to carry the film, and at conventions and the like. They each are about three minutes long, and some contain the same footage of the others. I wasn’t too impressed by these, but had I not already seen the movie, I’m sure they would have piqued my interest. “Around the World,” “Ultimate Hitman,” “Who is John Smith,” “Creating Katia Van Dees,” and “Iconic” are the titles of the featurettes. The titles are pretty self explanatory for each one, I would suggest watching them first, so they would be more interesting. A “Gallery” with promotion pictures, a “Poster Gallery,” two “Theatrical Trailers,” and a “Sneak Peek” round out the rest of the features. Watching all but the “Hit Gallery” will probably cost you about a half an hour, but I do suggest watching it all before the movie; they won’t be as boring then.
The Blu-ray is well put together; they could have added a commentary or more actual behind-the-scenes documentaries. For example, how they made Agent 47’s ballers and so on. Other than that the bonus features are nice additions to an action or video game fanatic’s collection. You won’t be ashamed to have this on your shelf next to Resident Evil and the like.