by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
B- Rated R 100 min
This is yet another video game to feature film adaptation to attract the gamer minions to the movie theaters. These CGI-generated action films also draw non-gamer-action-junkies. In movies like 300 and Beowulf, the fusion of CGI and live action is so seamless, it’s hard to tell the difference, but this looks more like CGI animation.
Fusing the video game reality with movies is a whole new genre of filmmaking that uses live actors melded with CGI effects. In this adaptation, directed by Xavier Gens and produced by Luc Besson, Timothy Olyphant portrays the mysterious Agent 47–trained from birth to adulthood to be an assassin by a secret society independent of any governments’ intelligence services. However, when the Agency’s (as it is called) mission coincides with he CIA or MI5, then the Agency’s assassins are shadowed and protected by the interested parties. It’s the old “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” philosophy.
In this scenario, although Xavier Gens is credited as the director, producer Luc Besson’s (La Femme Nikita, The Professional) ultra violent, gritty style is stamped on every frame. Olyphant, who was last seen in Deadwood, brings a mesmerizing intensity to this character, more like the Terminator than James Bond, as he dispatches anyone who gets in his way with an array of silenced handguns, assault rifles, and explosives.
Nothing can distract Agent 47 from his mission, he was bred since birth for this sort of action. Not even a sexy young woman, Nika Boronina (Olga Kurylenka), who gets naked for him; he tosses her aside (idiot). Banging this French beauty who threw herself at him was not on his agenda. This scenario is not about romance or sex, it’s about glorious gratuitous violence and intrigue. In fact, Agent 47 is himself the victim of a political conspiracy, which leads him into a trap by an Interpol inspector hot on his trail. Meanwhile, Agent 47 trudges through Eastern Europe terminating a gaggle of Euro-trash on his paid mission to assassinate the current Russian president.
Everywhere Agent 47 moves the body count goes up. The frustrated Interpol inspector is always one step behind him. The Russian Secret Police want to claim jurisdiction but the Interpol inspector holds his ground. He’s been tracking Agent 47 for two years across Europe. But this ghost is among a group of elite assassins on various missions. These guys are serious killers trained in numerous martial arts and weapons. They move in a shadowy world of invisibility–off the grid.
Of course, viewers wonder why Agent 47 has a bar-code tattooed on the back of his head? It’s dead giveaway to his identity. And we wonder about the organization called the Agency. What is their agenda? Why do they exist? Are they simply Murder Incorporated? Never mind that, this is a ride on the violent express. We become the assassin as he travels into the sleazy corners of Europe where international criminal syndicates war with each other over territory and Russian Mafia thugs expand their influence. Call in an Agency hit man to eliminate the competition or score a political victory.
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