Hola all. Massawyrm here.
What a goddamned waste of time and talent. If there is one movie this season that it is paramount that you miss, it is Hitman. There's nothing here, nothing at all. This is what happens when someone sits down to adapt a video game to film and forgets that part of the adaptation process involves, you know, adapting it so that it makes sense in its new context. But there's none of that here.
First of all, I love Timothy Olyphant. The guy's awesome. He can be funny, intimidating, lovable or throw all of that into the wind and play the worlds sleaziest super-douche. But he's not a total badass. That ain't him. You want the nice guy? You want the pissed off guy next door? Sure, he can do those things. He can be gruff enough to pull off Kurt Russell, or assholish enough to pull off Tom Cruise at his best. He is NOT Vin Diesel. When he walks onto the screen here you don't think what a badass. You think he's cancer patient with a good tailor.
Then we get into the realm of what were they thinking in which you begin asking yourself questions like: what kind of supersecret organization puts its logo on every fucking thing they give to their untraceable supersecret assassin? and What kind of untraceable supersecret assassin is clearly the most noticeable person in the room? and finally what kind of untraceable, supersecret assassin has a GIANT FUCKING TATTOO on the back of his skull for easy identification? Look, that barcode might work in the video games, but I kept wanting to run Timothy Olyphant's skull across a Wal-Mart scanner to see if he rang up the Hitman video game or a box of Massingil from aisle seven.
And why was I asking myself all of these questions? Well, I had to do something while I was sitting there. It's not like the plot was giving me anything to think about. Gee, an assassin hired to kill the Russian President gets double crossed and is on the run trying to solve the mystery while every other assassin on the planet is out to kill him. Holy-originality Batman! I almost don't remember that plot from 10 years ago when the Wachowskis wrote it – or the two dozen other movies that did it better, smarter and long before they did. This is written to entertain your average 13 year old, but has a rating that will insure they have to pay for Enchanted first before they sneak into this.
Although if this film has one saving grace, it is that it is not only rated R, but VERY rated R. There's plenty of blood, a few halfway decent kills and a hot Russian prostitute that keeps getting butt ass naked every few minutes while trying to fuck Timothy Olyphant. But without anything else going on, this seems to portray the very worst of the stereotypical, smutty, cheap thrills action movie.
Remember how base, simple and brainless xXx was? But remember how they pulled it off because it was over the top, funny and never for one moment took itself too seriously? Well, this felt like the emo little brother of that movie – the one that wanted so bad to be its big brother, but took itself WAY too fucking seriously on the path to doing it. This movie never tries to be a dumb, fun action movie. It genuinely thinks it's a cool, sleek action extravaganza. Instead, it's just another retread of the ground Ecks Vs Sever covered several years ago. But at least Ecks Vs Sever looked good when you turned off the volume.
Irredeemable lazy tripe. If I didn't know better, I would have guessed that this was written DURING the WGA strike, and not long before it. If there's one good thing that will come out of the strike, it is that the guys who penned this piece of rancid garbage will have been kept away from a keyboard for at least a few weeks. Highly recommended for 13 year olds who aren't quite smart enough to figure out how to see boobies on the internet but are smart enough to sneak into a movie, and NO ONE ELSE. Really, unless shiny objects are a real passion in your life, this will rob you of a few precious brain cells too many.
As a quick aside, much love to Marc Lapierre from over at Boxcar Astronaut who, inspired by my recent reminiscence about my childhood love of The Barbarians, offered up this brand spanking new Massawyrm avatar for all to enjoy. Harry gets Cartuna. Me, what do I get? Some of the coolest fucking readers in the world, that what. Thanks for reading, folks. Thanks for the kick ass pic marc. And Happy Thanksgiving, one and all.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Now why do I have this sudden urge to play Rygar?
