Movie Review: Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)

I was not a big fan of the previous attempt at a film adaptation of our favorite bald and bar-coded assassin in 2007's Hitman. It felt too much as though the writers were trying to develop 47 into a character quite unlike the one seen in the games. An example of this was the scene where Timothy Olyphant's Agent 47 reads a magazine article about animal mating in order to learn something about human women. It is true that 47 is not simply a rabid killing machine totally lacking conscience; we see his attempt at living a peaceful life at the beginning of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. However, this does not mean he is also attempting to settle down and have a family. That is just not him. Neither is 47 a curious adolescent trying to learn more about human sexuality. This scene simply didn't fit with the character and was written by someone seemingly unfamiliar with the games.

Fortunately, Hitman: Agent 47 improves upon the previous movie in this respect and is enjoyable for what it is. They do not attempt to engage in much character development of 47: he is an assassin, he is very good at what he does, and he was a clone bred to be a killer. (Which reminds me of another indication that the writers of the previous movie were unfamiliar with the games: there is a fight scene between 47 and other agents who happened to be ethnically diverse, which makes no sense as they are supposed to be clones.) But the improvement is only slight. It still feels like a rather generic action movie. What I would really like to see out of a Hitman film adaptation are the distinctive aspects of the series' gameplay. In other words, fewer shootouts and more creative smuggling of weapons where they are prohibited, over-the-top disguises, and elaborate assassination plots (perhaps of morbidly obese mob bosses). Hitman is (supposedly) a stealth game after all, and the films should reflect that.