Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.5

Hanna Blu-ray Movie Review

"Come and find me."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown August 22, 2011

What is Hanna? It isn't what its trailers suggest, it isn't what any review has managed to convey, and it certainly isn't what I thought it'd be. At all. Chances are it isn't like anything you've seen before. Weird, wild and beautiful, it's Jason Bourne by way of the Brothers Grimm, David Lynch by way of Hans Christian Andersen, Luc Besson and Tom Tykwer by way of huntsmen, evil witches and big, bad wolves. It doesn't hesitate, it hurtles along. It doesn't flinch, it charges. It prowls and pounces, haunts and disarms. It has a pulse, a heartbeat, a rythym. It roars. It cackles. It sings a lullaby. It hums. It whistles. And, really, you should stop reading right there. The joy is in the discovery, as they say, and Hanna is best served with as few expectations as possible. Whether you ultimately find it baffling or bewitching is, frankly, beside the point. It's well worth watching -- experiencing, rather -- and you'll be hard-pressed to deny the thrill of such a bizarre, breathtaking ride.

"You're dead. Right now. I've killed you..."

Once upon a time there was a very special girl named Hanna Heller (Saoirse Ronan). Since she was two-years-old, Hanna has lived in the secluded forests of Finland with her father, Erik (Eric Bana). There, she's learned to survive, hunt, fight... and kill. When she turns sixteen, her father decides she's ready to hear the truth and to be presented with a choice: continue living in seclusion or flip a switch on a dormant tracking device and alert a vindictive CIA chief, Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), to her whereabouts. It seems Marissa has been searching for Erik and Hanna since she failed to assassinate the pair fourteen years ago, and Hanna is all too anxious to meet the woman who murdered her mother and sent her father into hiding. The choice is simpler than Erik had hoped. Hanna flips the switch the moment he steps away from the cabin. And then? Then all hell breaks loose. Hanna, captured and taken to a CIA facility in Morocco, kills a woman she believes is Wiegler, steals intel about her true origins, escapes into the desert and hitches a ride with a family of tourists bound for Germany, where she plans to rendevous with her father. But she'll have to stay one step ahead of Marissa in a strange, alien world of television, traffic and the internet, and dodge the CIA witch's fiends, led by the maniacal Isaacs (Tom Hollander).

Hanna leaps over vast genre chasms with the grace of the fully realized dark-fantasy, action-thriller hybrid it is. Director Joe Wright -- Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, The Soloist and Hanna, a modern fairy tale about a gun-toting, neck-snapping sixteen-year-old. Which doesn't belong? -- has created something so wholly in tune with his vision, so true to its own delirious delights and hard-hitting flights of fancy that it floats high above the Hollywood fray. It begins simply enough, explodes soon thereafter, and then slowly reveals its secrets and intentions with meticulous precision, descending into increasingly offbeat, grotesque territory only after enchanting viewers with its siren call. Wright pushes, sure. But he knows exactly how much to push his audience at any given moment. He challenges convention, but knows just how much pressure to apply. He demands a lot of those watching the film for the first time, but never more than they should be able to bear. (And Hanna is even better on repeat viewings.) His mad-hatter action opera doesn't overwhelm or overreach; it hypnotizes, mesmerizes and casts a spell with fierce fist fights, coming-of-age tenderness, cruel villains, audaciously long tracking shots (complete with brawls sans cutaways or cheap edits), dazzling photography, and organic electronica (from The Chemical Brothers, no less). Its PG-13 rating doesn't cripple its strikes either and, if anything, imbues Wright's allegory with unforeseen sweetness, be it via a father's pain, a soft kiss or a trained killer beginning to realize that, at heart, she's just a little girl.

Ronan, who drew blood in Atonement but wasted away in Peter Jackson's Lovely Bones, doesn't buckle beneath the weight of Hanna or Hanna, and approaches every scene with the same killer instinct her adolescent assassin approaches an assailant. Wright and Ronan seem acutely aware of how easily the film could plummet over the edge and adapt (or die) accordingly, creating a young protagonist both beyond her years and subject to childlike awe. (Hanna squeals with girlish excitement at the sight of a passing plane mere moments after gutting a deer and battling her father on a frozen lake.) Elsewhere, Blanchett gobbles down helpless scenes with toothy vehemence and devilish zeal (she's the Wicked Stepmother, the Foul Enchantress and the Evil Queen), Hollander licks his deranged chops and bears his fangs with sick pleasure, and Bana brandishes his best Bana -- the somber but soulful soldier -- and lends balance to an eccentric ensemble. The travelers Hanna joins -- a family played with flaky bohemian funk by Jason Flemyng, Olivia Williams and kinetic ball of energy Jessica Barden -- may be the straw that crack some filmfans' backs, but their presence is only jarring initially and only the first time through. Further viewings (and a bit of patience) illuminate their true purpose -- no wandering fairy tale princess would be complete without a band of quirky creatures and peculiar new friends, be they dwarves, talking forest denizens or free-spirited European hippies -- and make them every bit as essential to Hanna as anything else. It's through her temporary surrogate family that she learns things her father neglected to teach her, for reasons that become painfully clear as the film nears its endgame.

But not everyone will be so forgiving. Hanna is a divisive genre-bender that will infuriate as many cinephiles as it entrances. Even if you and I typically see eye to eye, we may not this time around. Wright's fourth feature film defies expectation and explanation, and must be seen to be believed. It may not ensnare you, but it'll sink its claws in for two spellbinding hours. Hanna will probably make its way onto my Top Ten list this year, and it will undoubtedly find its way onto some of your lists as well, albeit as one of the Worst Films of 2011. You'll just have to brave its dark, demented forests to find out.

Hanna Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hanna goes for the jugular with a stunning 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's every bit as eclectic and brazen as the film itself. Stark, snowy plains and firelit cabins give way to steely CIA holding cells and the green glow of computer banks, dank tunnels and passageways open to reveal dusty-orange Moroccan sands and sprawling urban jungles, and hellish nightmares erupt in the midst of colorful dreamscapes. From the bleak to the beautiful, though, primaries are striking, skintones are perfectly saturated and black levels are ominous and otherworldly. Detail is exceptional as well. Not every shot is as razor-sharp as the next -- Wright and cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler aren't remotely interested in painting a slick spy-vs-spy picture -- but the softness, grittiness and garishness that appears from time to time adheres to the filmmakers' dizzying vision to the letter. Textures are naturally resolved, delineation is satisfying and edges are refined (without any substantial ringing to point to). Likewise, artifacting, aliasing, smearing and crush are left out in the cold, and banding, faint and infrequent as it may be, is the only minor issue that rears its head. Hanna may be a divisive film, but its video transfer is not.

Hanna Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Universal delivers a final, devastating blow with a pulse-pounding, pitch-perfect DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track; arguably one of the best lossless mixes of the year. Dialogue doesn't simply preside, it rides the wave of Hanna's soundscape, attacking and retreating with the dust-ups and downbeats of the film's action scenes and Chemical Brothers evocative score. Voices are crisp and intelligible, effects are clear and convincing, prioritization is outstanding, and directionality is remarkably precise. And Hollander's whistling? Shivers. Through it all, the rear speakers never say die, assaulting any eager listener with welcome bursts of storybook electronica, gunfire, ambient effects, acoustic wizardry and whatever enveloping sonics Wright has in store. The LFE channel doesn't relent either, thrumming with disarming power and exploding with deep, hearty thooms and booms. And yet the soundfield isn't unruly or untamed, and the mix exhibits phenomenal prowess. There isn't a single scene that falls short or a single sequence that comes undone. I, for one, am smitten.

Hanna Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Hannah isn't simmering with the latest and greatest Picture-in-Picture extras, but its special features get the job done. And while more behind-the-scenes material (or a full-length documentary) would have been appreciated, the disc's audio commentary and high definition featurettes are fairly sufficient.

• Audio Commentary: Director Joe Wright doesn't waste much time -- any time, really -- delving into the world of Hanna, outlining its inception, development and earliest scenes, and peeling back the many, many layers of its characters, story, music and imagery. Before all is said and done, the Atonement filmmaker talks at length about the film's casting, performances, action sequences, tone, fairy tale plotting, characters and themes, leaving virtually no stone unturned. And he does so without losing himself in silence, drifting off topic or wearing out his welcome. As solo commentaries go, Wright's track is an excellent one.
• Adapt or Die (HD, 13 minutes): Wright, actress Saoirse Ronan, actor Eric Bana and stunt coordinator Jeff Imada discuss fight training and choreography, character development, action scene editing and more in this behind-the-scenes featurette.
• Central Intelligence Allegory (HD, 9 minutes): Cate Blanchett, Tom Hollander and writer Seth Lochead join Wright and Bana to dissect Hanna's archetypes, fantasy elements, allegorical threads, origin stories, symbols and narrative.
• Chemical Reaction (HD, 6 minutes): "Enter The Chemical Brothers." Wright chats about his collaboration with Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, the ever-blurring line between the film's music and effects, and the decisions that led to Hanna's fantastic Chemical Brothers score.
• Anatomy of a Scene: The Escape from Camp G (HD, 3 minutes): The creation of an action scene, from conception to storyboards to set construction to shoot. It's too short, but it offers a glimpse into Wright's process.
• Deleted Scenes and Alternate Ending (HD, 5 minutes): A decent but unnecessary alternate ending is the only cut of note in the disc's slim collection of deleted, extended and alternate scenes.
• The Wide World of Hanna (HD, 2 minutes): A brief EPK. For completists only.
• Hanna Promo (HD, 2 minutes)
• BD-Live Functionality & News Ticker
• My Scenes Bookmarking

Hanna Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Hanna doesn't play by any rules other than Wright's and it's all the more fascinating and fantastical for it. No, it won't win over every filmfan, nor will it enchant everyone as easily as it did me. But it won't soon be forgotten either. Thankfully, Universal's Blu-ray release is an excellent one. Between its gorgeous video transfer, electrifying DTS-HD Master Audio track and solid suite of supplements, Hanna high definition excursion is worth the price of admission.