We’re constantly reminded of the video game origins of “Hitman: Agent 47,” from the pulsating music designed to keep our blood pumping to the heavy use of quick cuts interspersed with super-slow-mo violence to the look and even the performances of the slick and attractive cast.
Not for a second does any of this feel like anything that could take place in anything resembling the real world, but I suppose that’s the point. We don’t attend something like “Hitman: Agent 47” looking for gritty realism, but what we do expect is an entertaining and reasonably clever thrill ride.
No such luck.
The problem is, the action sequences are nothing special, the big-picture questions about man’s attempt to create a more advanced and more lethal version of himself have been tackled with far more depth and grace in dozens of sci-fi thrillers from “Blade Runner” to the early “Terminator” movies to “Ex Machina,” and the plot is just high-tech Swiss cheese, filled with holes and smelling like last week’s refrigerator contents.
Here’s the deal, if you must know. Long ago, a top-secret organization created a program in which humans were engineered from early childhood to become perfect killing machines, with superhero-level fighting abilities and virtually no conscience or heart. No regrets, no feelings of loneliness, no empathy, no interest in love.
These half-human, half-machine creations were known as “agents,” identified only by the last two digits on the barcode tattooed on the backs of their necks. (Imagine the confusion at supermarket checkout counters.) If you’re Agent 22, that means you’re more advanced than the 21 projects that preceded you, but you hope never to run into Agent 23 in a dark alley.
But the program was shut down because programs such as this are almost always shut down in movies like this. Things start to go wrong. The scientist who created the program realizes it will be co-opted by governments intent on creating indestructible armies. And blah de blah blah blah.
Looking lean, lethal and mean, his head shaved (the better for us to see that barcode tattoo) and his suits perfectly tailored, Rupert Friend does fine work as Agent 47, perhaps the last of his kind still in existence. Agent 47 has been given the task of tracking down Katia (Hannah Ware), a beautiful and deeply troubled woman who is obsessed with tracking down Litvenko (Ciaran Hinds), the genius who created the program all those years ago and has been living off the grid for decades. If Agent 47 can find Katia, he can find Litvenko, which means an evil conglomerate bent on restarting the agent program can tap into Litvenko’s genius because he has the blueprint for the whole thing memorized.
Katia’s such a mess she doesn’t even know why she’s trying to find Litvenko. Not that it’s difficult to figure out their connection from the get-go.
Zachary Quinto is John Smith, who seems to possess at least equal speed, strength, cunning and firepower as Agent 47. Smith shows up in Katia’s life just in time to save her, multiple times. What a guy.
Agent 47 and Smith engage in a number of shootouts and hand-to-hand combat sequences. Dozens of anonymous assassins representing various interests show up en masse and proceed to get killed either by gunfire or having their necks snapped or getting stabbed. In other words, the usual R-rated fun and games.
Director Aleksander Bach seems to be having quite the good time creating elaborate fight sequences and shootouts. The screenplay by Skip Woods and Michael Finch contains some major zigs and zags, but one can see the big twists coming a mile away.
All signs point to a sequel and maybe even multiple “Hitman” films. After sitting through this one, you might view that as more of a threat than a promise. Rated R.
