As the twig is bent . . .

Hanna

Crit

I confess I had my doubts, strong reviews notwithstanding (and now I see that its Rotten Tomatoes Top Critics number is just 57%, which I'm very glad not to have known before going, 'cause I might not have), but zowie! This is a ballsy young chick who makes Buffy the Vampire Slayer look like Buffy from Family Affair. I liked the film so much that I'm going to start with my quibbles: first, the deep dark secret that's kept from us until near the end is a serious anticlimax. And as is so often the case with movies about the person we care about running away from the evildoers, the final reel is a little too much of the same thing.

But apart from that, it has the same sort of adrenaline-drip effect of Lola rennt, and looks and sounds even better (e.g., there's no flamenco segment in Lola; more movies should have Romany music in them, dammit!). And if Franka Potente looks spectacular, Saoirse Ronan (remember the little liar in Atonement?) has the face of a blue-eyed Aryan angel (of death), and can act, as well. I predict that there will be more than one year when she and Dakota Fanning will be vying for the same Oscar™.

Moreover, even the clichés here are shot so as to make them almost fresh. And the good-people-who-should-never-have-crossed-paths-with-our-hero--specifically a family on holiday from . . . Australia? Hammersmith? actually, I don't think they all have the same accent . . . anyway, they're exactly what the film needs when they show up, and teen daughter Sophie (Jessica Barden, last seen and loved in Tamara Drewe) is just what Hanna needs, having led, you might say, a bit of a sheltered life.

Trailers

• The Debt--Three young Mossad agents in search of a war criminal in 1965; Helen Mirren leads an excellent cast, and John Madden directs. Looks good.
• Captain America: The First Avenger--I'd love to be able to say this looks good, but it looks pretty run-of-the-comic-book-mill. Still, I'll hope.
• Warrior--Oh, I don't think so.
• Anonymous--About time we got a classy-looking Shakespeare-authorship-denial flick--hells yeah!