When I watched Hanna (2011), the first thing I thought was: I would love to see her again 10 years later.
There was something about its brutality that was somehow comforting, maybe because director Joe Wright did dare to mix elements from childhood and adulthood perfectly to develop a story that lives in a complex between. He balanced things in a way to make audience feel like the character, confused about someone so young having to be cruel to survive amongst the cruelty of others. Wright did an incredible job that most people forgot, or did not care about at that time.
Now I somehow see my wishes come true. I'm not seeing Hanna 10 years older, but I will be able to see more.
Yeah, we can make some fair comparisons to the movie. First about the cast. The cast here do an amazing job the same way Ronan, Blanchett and Bana did in the movie. Sometimes I think that Mireille Enos explores Marissa deeper than Blanchett did, and sometimes Esme Creed-Miles brings to the surface a sweetness that Ronan could not explore in the movie too much because the pace of the story was different and its development was darker. Of course that I prefer Eric Bana, but Altered Carbon's Joel Kinnaman does a fair job to the character too.
There's drama, there's action. Sometimes a spy thriller, sometimes a heist-ish atmosphere. The pace is good, intense and able to maintain audience interested and expecting more.
The first problem I see is that they rushed some themes and subplots that wasn't that necessary too early, like when Hanna meets a girl and suddenly both are like long time BFFs. That should have happened in a similar way as happened with the first boy she meets, one step at time, carefully and slowly till both girls finally trust each other. In an eight episode show, that could have been possible.
Also, it's hard to believe that in a 21st century show an elite squad using heavy weaponry and submachine guns let their main target escape in a car without a scratch or a bullet hole, and just one person backing up and facing the entire squad with a pistol. I mean... Really?!
These small things makes all the efforts to make the show a top notch drama fails to an outrageous absurd at times. And the storyline, as some has already said, waste too much time on redundant and superficial drama, when the plot has much more to offer.
Kudos for the cast, but not so much for the writing that sometimes seems corny and below the avarage, trying to offer impact dialogs all the time, but not always achieving the objective.
The way they tried to develop the past of Erik and Hanna's mother wasn't as good as it should, but instead looked like an ordinary soap opera that doesn't justify too much either. The episode that Johanna asks Erik to undo what she's done was a complete disaster, very bad directed and acted.
But the show, in a whole, has a lot to offer in the future, but the production should push it more to the limits as the characters and the main plot deserves, and as the original 2 hour movie does brilliantly.
There was something about its brutality that was somehow comforting, maybe because director Joe Wright did dare to mix elements from childhood and adulthood perfectly to develop a story that lives in a complex between. He balanced things in a way to make audience feel like the character, confused about someone so young having to be cruel to survive amongst the cruelty of others. Wright did an incredible job that most people forgot, or did not care about at that time.
Now I somehow see my wishes come true. I'm not seeing Hanna 10 years older, but I will be able to see more.
Yeah, we can make some fair comparisons to the movie. First about the cast. The cast here do an amazing job the same way Ronan, Blanchett and Bana did in the movie. Sometimes I think that Mireille Enos explores Marissa deeper than Blanchett did, and sometimes Esme Creed-Miles brings to the surface a sweetness that Ronan could not explore in the movie too much because the pace of the story was different and its development was darker. Of course that I prefer Eric Bana, but Altered Carbon's Joel Kinnaman does a fair job to the character too.
There's drama, there's action. Sometimes a spy thriller, sometimes a heist-ish atmosphere. The pace is good, intense and able to maintain audience interested and expecting more.
The first problem I see is that they rushed some themes and subplots that wasn't that necessary too early, like when Hanna meets a girl and suddenly both are like long time BFFs. That should have happened in a similar way as happened with the first boy she meets, one step at time, carefully and slowly till both girls finally trust each other. In an eight episode show, that could have been possible.
Also, it's hard to believe that in a 21st century show an elite squad using heavy weaponry and submachine guns let their main target escape in a car without a scratch or a bullet hole, and just one person backing up and facing the entire squad with a pistol. I mean... Really?!
These small things makes all the efforts to make the show a top notch drama fails to an outrageous absurd at times. And the storyline, as some has already said, waste too much time on redundant and superficial drama, when the plot has much more to offer.
Kudos for the cast, but not so much for the writing that sometimes seems corny and below the avarage, trying to offer impact dialogs all the time, but not always achieving the objective.
The way they tried to develop the past of Erik and Hanna's mother wasn't as good as it should, but instead looked like an ordinary soap opera that doesn't justify too much either. The episode that Johanna asks Erik to undo what she's done was a complete disaster, very bad directed and acted.
But the show, in a whole, has a lot to offer in the future, but the production should push it more to the limits as the characters and the main plot deserves, and as the original 2 hour movie does brilliantly.