HANNA OR HOW TO HAVE ONE IDEA AND MAKE IT PAY TWICE
In 2011, Hanna, the movie, was released. Written by David Farr and Seth Lochhead, directed by Joe Wright, Hanna made money with a worldwide gross over $60 million and a budget of $30 million. Lots of people thought it was a great movie.
The plot was a little crazy - a 16 y.o. girl, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan), is being reared by her father (Eric Bana) in the wilds of Finland. She is taught to hunt (with a bow and arrow), speak several languages and win a hand-to-hand or foot-to-face battle with anyone. Why he trains her is not clear but it seems he wants her to be an assassin and when she is ready, she will be unleashed. Meanwhile, a rogue CIA agent (Cate Blanchett) is after her - or is Hanna the hunter?
The movie became well known for its great visuals and its soundtrack by The Chemical Brothers. It came, it was appreciated and it passed.
But in today's world where nothing is allowed a fond farewell, Hanna is back, this time as a limited series on Amazon Prime. The plot is the same, the writer is the same, but the faces have changed. Hanna is now 12 years old and played by Esme Creed-Miles, her father by Joel Kinnaman and the rogue CIA agent by Mireille Enos. And what was a less than 2 hour flick is blown up into an 8 hour series.
For eight episodes, we wonder all over Europe with Hanna. As she kills her way through several fortresses that we are led to believe are impregnable, the death toll rises to mass murder numbers. Here is a TV series showing a young girl cooly machine-gunning down rows of soldiers or cops or whatever. She barely blinks. And the soldiers or cops or whatever never get any smarter - they get mowed down but they keep coming as if they were trained to die just as well as she was trained to kill.
I guess it is progress that now, in our #metoo era, young girls can be marauding murderers too. The point of all this mayhem is a bit vague. Hanna wants to find out who she is and whether her father is really her father and who was her now- deceased mother. It seems that Hanna was 'manufactured' by a company called Utrex and that it is manufacturing dozens like her. They get the babies from women who seek abortions but get talked - or coerced (not clear) - into giving up their baby. The babies are sent to a facility where they are brainwashed or programmed to be killers. Their goal seems to be, dare I say, world conquest!
If this seems similar to the Fox series, The Passage, join the line. Young girls who are changed into or become killers or monsters seems to be a theme that strikes a cord with modern content providers. May I suggest therapy?
I wonder why someone would want to remake a recent movie that did well at the box office but was not exactly a classic crying for a modern take on it? I think it may have to do with content providers who have no idea what will work and so remaking past 'hits' seems the safest bet. Hey, they got me to watch.