2008 Woodie Awards
Don't bother hitting up Hitman
Justin Reid
Issue date: 1/17/08 Section: Sci/Tech
As soon as I finished watching the trailer for this videogame-based movie, I immediately wanted to go "off" myself. Or maybe Vin Diesel, who produced it. I guess it just goes to show that almost every movie based on a videogame ends up being crap.
What's wrong with it, you ask? Well, first, of all, the game Hitman was amazing. On every level, you had to strategize how you were going to kill your target, and that often involved a decent amount of stealth and disguise. If you couldn't do that, you ended up dead very quickly.
This was my first real disappointment with the movie. There was a lot of shooting and explosions, but nothing I hadn't seen before in a thousand other action movies. There was no stealth or deception going on here.
My second problem was pretty much everything else in the movie. The videogame seems to have more plot than the movie, and what little plot is in the movie barely ties in with the videogame. Okay, they're both about a hitman who has a bald head, dual pistols, a shiny head with a serial number on the back, who gets paid to hunt bad guys. The resemblance ends there. The trailer claims Agent 47 is "protected by divinity." Where was that in the videogame? What happened to my moral ambiguity? Plus, it just sounds laughable. I mean, Joan of Arc didn't get divine protection, and yet you expect me to believe an assassin is going to? Plus, what fun is it to watch a hero who is invincible? Even Superman has kryptonite.
Then there is the little matter of the main actor. Who the heck is Timothy Olyphant? I was part of a large crowd hoping for Jason Statham from the Transporter movies. I'm surprised Diesel didn't take the role. Did he think he was too good for it? If so, he needs to watch 2 Fast 2 Furious again.
I think movies.com was generous when they gave this movie a D. It deserves an F.
What's wrong with it, you ask? Well, first, of all, the game Hitman was amazing. On every level, you had to strategize how you were going to kill your target, and that often involved a decent amount of stealth and disguise. If you couldn't do that, you ended up dead very quickly.
This was my first real disappointment with the movie. There was a lot of shooting and explosions, but nothing I hadn't seen before in a thousand other action movies. There was no stealth or deception going on here.
My second problem was pretty much everything else in the movie. The videogame seems to have more plot than the movie, and what little plot is in the movie barely ties in with the videogame. Okay, they're both about a hitman who has a bald head, dual pistols, a shiny head with a serial number on the back, who gets paid to hunt bad guys. The resemblance ends there. The trailer claims Agent 47 is "protected by divinity." Where was that in the videogame? What happened to my moral ambiguity? Plus, it just sounds laughable. I mean, Joan of Arc didn't get divine protection, and yet you expect me to believe an assassin is going to? Plus, what fun is it to watch a hero who is invincible? Even Superman has kryptonite.
Then there is the little matter of the main actor. Who the heck is Timothy Olyphant? I was part of a large crowd hoping for Jason Statham from the Transporter movies. I'm surprised Diesel didn't take the role. Did he think he was too good for it? If so, he needs to watch 2 Fast 2 Furious again.
I think movies.com was generous when they gave this movie a D. It deserves an F.
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