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Video Game Adaptation Has a Few Glitches

All the reviews you will read for "Hitman: Agent 47" will probably say something snarky like "it's about as exciting as watching someone play the video game for 96 minutes".

Not here.

I've got to imagine that watching someone play the video game that spawned this dreadful film has to be more exciting. I haven't stayed up-to-date in the video game world for quite some time but getting together with a few of your friends and having a few laughs over playing "Hitman" sounds a lot more fun than enduring 96 minutes of look-what-we-can-do filmmaking.

"Hitman: Agent 47" is all about the violence and the action, the explosions and the effects. You may be reading this and think that is why we buy tickets to movies like this. In theory, you would be correct, but director Aleksander Bach doesn't do anything to make "Hitman: Agent 47" remotely compelling or involving. Like the bad seed lovechild of a video game and an EDM music video, the movie is overly stylized to the point of self-parody.

One of my biggest gripes in action filmmaking is directors' incessant need to capture action scenes in slow motion. My only guess at the thought process behind that is that it adds more suspense to where the character may land after coming down from mid-air in slow motion. Bach uses slow motion ad nauseam, which is never effective. We are constantly following Agent 47 (Rupert Friend) in and out of rooms and various scenes of mayhem set to an overbearing score and in slow motion.

Amidst the glossy scenery and white rooms that get splattered with blood, there is some sort of a plot to "Hitman: Agent 47". In a bit of tell-all exposition, we are informed about the conception of The Agent Program, which was started in 1967. The program has been disbanded, with a few agents still wreaking havoc in the world. One of them, Agent 47, is tasked with tracking down Katia (Hannah Ware), who may know more about the program than she thinks. She might be able to lead Agent 47 to the creator of the program (played by Ciaran Hinds).

The path to the program's creator is relentlessly bloody but numbingly repetitive. There is never any tension or thrills along the way because we know that anyone who crosses Agent 47 will end up dead. The mysterious, nondescriptly named John Smith (Zachary Quinto) proves to be a bit of a challenge for Agent 47 but even their interactions are never exciting.

Bach has created a film that is assembled from parts of better and more interesting action films. Friend, in his first headline role, fails to portray the menace he should as a genetically engineered killing machine. He is stoic but never threatening, which is a big problem as he takes out everyone who crosses him. On TV's "Homeland", Friend plays quiet stoicism much more convincingly. There is great mystery and intrigue to his "Homeland" character, which is missing throughout this movie.

As much as I hate to use such hyperbolic exclamations about how bad this movie is, it must be said; "Hitman: Agent 47" is pure movie garbage. When it fails to succeed on the simplest level for its genre, we have a problem.

So, here we are, winding down August, a known slow period for quality films (but not without its surprises - go see "Straight Outta Compton")."Hitman: Agent 47" fits the mold of a quintessential August release - forgettable and lacking any redeeming qualities.