Girl Power

There is something strangely exciting and satisfying about watching a pre-pubescent girl kick the living snot out of dozens of highly-trained soldiers. That's the way it is with "Hanna", the thriller starring Saoirse Ronan. The film opens in a beautiful, remote snowy wilderness regions where we are witness to a young woman’s ruthless training in weapons, hand-to hand combat, survival tactics, military strategy, map reading, logic, geography, and all things violent.
Every martial arts film must have a Student surpassing the Master scene and here Hanna does not disappoint. In the Kung Fu TV series starring David Carridine the disciple snatched the pebble from the master's hand. In this tale, Hanna defeats her father in their routine daily combat.
This is where similarities to more noble warrior movies end, however. Hanna's mission is one of vengeance, not peace. Set to the task of seeking out and punishing those responsible for her unusual talents, it becomes quickly apparent that she is more pint- sized Jason Bourne than spiritual warrior.
The back story: some time ago, the government has decided to recruit unsuspecting mothers into a Perfect Soldier Surrogate Mom Program. Its questionable goal is to enhance humans at the genetic level. By removing all barriers to cruelty and pain, by taking away all human compassion, sympathy, fear, and mercy and by enhancing strength, speed, hearing, reflexes, and visual acuity with specialized training, the developers hoped to create the ultimate army of killing machines. They are essentially weaponizing children in a way that would make Nazi eugenics scientists green with envy.

When the Soldier Project is shut down, it is done in customary scorched-earth policy style. The experimental subjects must be terminated without exception. Fortunately for moviegoers, Hanna is smuggled away as an infant. In an ironic twist, she is trained by her father to be the very thing she was to be saved from becoming. As in instrument of war, Hanna has no equals in her weight class (or outside of it). An expert in all weapons, she breaches the test compound and begins to unleash a torrent of mayhem rivaled perhaps only by Uma Thurman in the "Kill Bill" series. Hanna has an opportunity to speak to a stand-in, whom she beieves to be the woman heading up the project and promptly snaps her neck. She is an expert with a bow and the opening sequence show her shooting a deer but missing her heart. The deer runs for a while and Hanna tracks it. This sequence comes full circle later in the movie when in the same vein, Hanna tracks prey of the two-legged kind. These types of films depend on effective arch villains and in this, too, Hanna delivers. Cate Blanchett, who plays corrupt C.I.A. agent Marissa Wiegler with her customary zeal. For those prone to falling asleep during movies, this film offers a cure. Although the story is of rehashed material, the cinematography is compelling, and the fight scenes are choreographed in a way that creates satisfying entertainment. All too often fight scenes are choreographed in the editing room, where quick cuts are meant to make up for a lack of visual planning on set. Not here. Hanna performs in the action film category and for that, it is to be commended.