A Thrilling Action Movie – Hitman: Agent 47 Blu-ray Review

Hitman: Agent 47 - 20th Century Fox

<p>Video game movies have been given a bad rap for years&comma; almost as long as licensed video games have been in the works&period; Thankfully time is starting to swing in their direction now with people taking the movies seriously&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m looking at you Michael Fassbender &lpar;<em>Assassin&&num;8217&semi;s Creed<&sol;em>&rpar;&period; <em>Hitman&colon; Agent 47<&sol;em> is definitely a step in the right direction&period; While not a perfect video game to movie adaptation&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s a very well done movie that didn&&num;8217&semi;t get too outlandish or stray away from the source material&comma; unlike<em> Resident Evil<&sol;em>&period;  Overall&comma; I enjoyed the movie &&num;8211&semi; not so much as it was pure <em>Hitman &&num;8211&semi;<&sol;em> because it was a great action movie that gave some cool nods to the <em>Hitman<&sol;em> franchise&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>First off&comma; I do want to say that I watched this movie in the theater&period; I enjoyed it there&comma; but man this Blu-ray really made the movie look good&period; It was crisp&comma; clean and I could see every blood spatter and bead of sweat on Rupert Friend&&num;8217&semi;s bald head&period; The action scenes looked amazing and sounded great&period; However&comma; the only negative with the sound is that sometimes I had to turn up the volume because I couldn&&num;8217&semi;t hear the dialogue&period; Once the dialogue was over and there was a huge action scene&comma; my ears began to bleed before I could grab the remote and compensate&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s the only huge concern I had with the transfer from the theater to the small screen&semi; it isn&&num;8217&semi;t too big of an issue&comma; but just be prepared to have some Jedi skills with the volume control so you don&&num;8217&semi;t wake the neighbors&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;97039" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-97039" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-97039" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;12&sol;04094351&sol;Hitman-Agent-47-Movie-1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Hitman&colon; Agent 47 - 20th Century Fox" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"425" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-97039" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Hitman&colon; Agent 47&comma; 20th Century Fox&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The movie itself is pretty good&period; To me it isn&&num;8217&semi;t a <em>Hitman<&sol;em> movie per say&comma; but it does feature some elements and shots that look to be pulled directly from the game&period; The opening scene is what the entire movie should have been&colon; traps and stealth kills&period; This scene also has some of the most iconic Hitman shots that look just like the game&semi; keep an eye out for those because the director nailed them&period; After that opening scene&comma; the stealth takes a backseat to huge action scenes&period; The premise of the whole movie is that an evil corporation &lpar;Syndicate&rpar; wants to figure out how to make Agents so that they can have an army of them&period; Once the project was put on ice in the &&num;8217&semi;60&&num;8217&semi;s the main mind of the whole project disappeared&comma;  but he left the world a daughter&period; A daughter&comma; Katia Van Dees&comma; who has been programmed to be extremely useful&comma; to herself and to the evil Syndicate&period; Agent 47&comma; aptly played by Rupert Friend&comma;is tasked to kill her&period; He is foiled however as she is saved by John Smith&comma; played by Zachary Quinto&period; The fights between Agent 47 and Smith are amazing&semi; they&&num;8217&semi;re great battles that you wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t really see in the game&comma; but instead you get to watch 2 superhuman killers fist-fight until one outsmarts the other&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The movie takes you all over the world&semi; you get to see the Berlin and the almost perfect city of Singapore&comma; and these two agents battle it out for Katia Van Dees&&num;8217&semi; trust and her father&period; As the movie progresses you get to see more into the world of Agent 47&comma; how smart he is and why he is considered as a legend to other characters in the movie&period; The story does get a little far fetched as you watch&comma; but the action scenes get bigger and bigger until the amazing climax&period; This movie is a great action movie&comma; but it needed more stealth and creative kills than the huge action set pieces&period; I would have been much happier with more of the precision and sneak kills than the full on fist fights with Smith&period; If you are a fan of <em>Hitman 2&colon; Silent Assassin<&sol;em> or <em>Hitman&colon; Blood Money&comma;<&sol;em> you may not like this iteration of the character due to the heavy stealth in those games&period; However&comma; if you were a huge fan <em>Hitman&colon; Absolution<&sol;em>&comma; where you could go stealth or run and gun&comma; this may be the perfect <em>Hitman<&sol;em> for you&period; 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&&num;8217&semi;s mission&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;97043" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-97043" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-97043" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;12&sol;04094341&sol;hitman-agent-4117&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Hitman&colon; Agent 47 - 20th Century Fox" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"352" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-97043" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Hitman&colon; Agent 47&comma; 20th Century Fox&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><strong>Blu-ray Special Features<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Here comes the obligatory special features that sometimes feel thrown together for certain Blu-ray releases&period; This unfortunately is the case when it comes to <em>Hitman&colon; Agent 47<&sol;em> on Blu-ray&period; This disc has many special features&comma; but none really popped out to me or left me needing to re-watch&period; The first special feature that I looked at were the &&num;8220&semi;deleted scenes&semi;&&num;8221&semi; they spared no expense and gave us three whole scenes to enjoy&period; One of the scenes made no sense in the grand scheme of things&comma; and I&&num;8217&semi;m guessing that it was part of a different plotline that was dropped from the final film&period; The other two scenes were interesting&semi; it seems like they got pulled from the movie so that two similar scenes that were way better replaced them&period; Instead of Smith and 47 fighting in an airplane hanger&comma; they fought at a construction site in this deleted scene&period; The airplane hanger replacement was much better and much more action packed&period; In result&comma;  it was a great switch for the movie&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The next feature that I looked at was called &&num;8220&semi;The Hit-Counter&&num;8221&semi; which restarted the movie for me and instead of having an audio commentary&comma; it showed pop ups&period; If you are old enough to remember <em>Pop Up Video<&sol;em>&comma; and you actually enjoyed it&comma; then this is the special feature for you&period; The pop ups talk about the game development and so on&comma; which would have been interesting for me had I not already known about it&period; After that there is &&num;8220&semi;Re-Imagining <em>Hitman<&sol;em>&comma;&&num;8221&semi; which is a small documentary about how the director took the movie from game form into an action packed spectacle&period; You get to see some behind-the-scenes footage from the movie while people talk about how great <em>Hitman<&sol;em> is and how they wanted to make sure his suit&comma; ballers and bar code were perfect&period; This documentary was about five minutes long and really didn&&num;8217&semi;t give any insight into the movie&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;97047" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-97047" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-97047" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;12&sol;04094331&sol;Hitman-movie-agent-5547&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Hitman&colon; Agent 47 - 20th Century Fox" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"325" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-97047" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Hitman&colon; Agent 47&comma; 20th Century Fox&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The documentary that follows&comma; &&num;8220&semi;<em>Ultimate Action&colon; Staging the Fights<&sol;em>&comma;&&num;8221&semi; is somewhat humdrum as well&period; We are able to see the fight director take Friend and Quinto through some fights&comma; but the feature is so short&comma; there is nothing to learn about the fights&period; The only thing that I really learned is that Friend did 95 percent of his stunts and fights&comma; which I think is pretty brave after watching these fights&period;<em> Hitman&colon; The Comic Book <&sol;em>follows&comma; 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&period; After that there is a very short documentary about the making of the digital comic book with the writer and the artist&period; Nothing new or interesting is gleaned from it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The special features contains Five Promotional Featurettes that were most likely shown to movie theatres to carry the film&comma; and at conventions and the like&period; They each are about three minutes long&comma; and some contain the same footage of the others&period; I wasn&&num;8217&semi;t too impressed by these&comma; but had I not already seen the movie&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m sure they would have piqued my interest&period; &&num;8220&semi;Around the World&comma;&&num;8221&semi; &&num;8220&semi;Ultimate Hitman&comma;&&num;8221&semi; &&num;8220&semi;Who is John Smith&comma;&&num;8221&semi; &&num;8220&semi;Creating Katia Van Dees&comma;&&num;8221&semi; and &&num;8220&semi;Iconic&&num;8221&semi; are the titles of the featurettes&period; The titles are pretty self explanatory for each one&comma; I would suggest watching them first&comma; so they would be more interesting&period; A &&num;8220&semi;Gallery&&num;8221&semi; with promotion pictures&comma; a &&num;8220&semi;Poster Gallery&comma;&&num;8221&semi; two &&num;8220&semi;Theatrical Trailers&comma;&&num;8221&semi; and a &&num;8220&semi;Sneak Peek&&num;8221&semi; round out the rest of the features&period; Watching all but the &&num;8220&semi;Hit Gallery&&num;8221&semi; will probably cost you about a half an hour&comma; but I do suggest watching it all before the movie&semi; they won&&num;8217&semi;t be as boring then&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Blu-ray is well put together&semi; they could have added a commentary or more actual behind-the-scenes documentaries&period; For example&comma; how they made Agent 47&&num;8217&semi;s ballers and so on&period; Other than that the bonus features are nice additions to an action or video game fanatic&&num;8217&semi;s collection&period; You won&&num;8217&semi;t be ashamed to have this on your shelf next to <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> and the like&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong><em>A Blu-ray copy of Hitman Agent 47 was been provided by 20th Century Fox for the purpose of this review&period; <&sol;em><&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

Exit mobile version