Thursday, July 05, 2007

A Game Based movie that could be good?

I can't believe I am actually saying this, but Hollywood is actually making a video game based movie I would be interested in seeing. I know, it boggles the mind.

Hitman, based on the series of games of the same name, follows a professional assassin codenamed Agent 47, a genetically-cloned assassin, who has been trained from childhood to be exceedingly good at that job. However, he rebelled against the criminals who made him who he was and found gainful employment as the most elite assassin for a group called the Agency. And because he is a freelancer, generally speaking, the people he is assigned to kill are very bad.

And unlike a lot of other action titles, the emphasis of Hitman was always on creativity. Yes, you could kill everyone to get to one specific target, but the design of the game almost always rewarded a more thoughtful approach to fulfilling a contract, with the highest honors going to those occasions where you did not cause collateral damage, and in fact, made the hit look like an accident or suicide, and I hope there is an emphasis on that in the upcoming movie.

Now I am worried that the script was written by the same guy who did "Swordfish", so that doesn't bode well for the chances that 47 is going to truly be a silent assassin.

However, I am not worried about Timothy Olyphant playing the role, though there are still a lot of complaints in the fan community that Jason Statham should have been given the role, but I disagree. Given Olyphant's previous roles, I think he has the right kind of intensity and while I haven't heard him speak in the role, I think he also has the chops to make the character work vocally as well(though David Bateson will always be the voice of 47 in my books). When the project was first announced, Vin Diesel was supposed to produce and star in the movie, and I am glad that fell apart.

Here is the rundown of what the movie is supposed to be about when it is released in October:

A gun-for-hire known only as Agent 47 (Olyphant) is ensnared in a political conspiracy, which finds him pursued by both Interpol and the Russian military as he treks across Eastern Europe, and hired by a group known as "The Agency" to kill targets for cash.


Is it going to suck? Given the history of video game based movies, all signs point to yes, especially since it is coming out 6 months after they started filming.

Is there a chance it could be really good? Given what I know about the series, I think that indeed a good movie could be made.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So ehm... I am just gonna throw it in again: am I really weird if I haven't got the faintest clue what/who Hitman is?

Yeah, don't answer that... I know...

MC said...

It'salright... different cultural experience is all.

The Ferryman said...

You know, it's strange. I saw trailer for it last weekend at the theater, and I was thinking it looked pretty good. Then at the end it revealed the name of the film and right away I thought "Oh, based on that video game. It's gonna suck".

Yet, the trailer DID look good...

Mayren said...

i think the hype is just that.
I think we've been led down this "promise of a good movie" path before and been smacked down.

i wish i could be wrong.

MC said...

Mr. Fab: But trailers do look good for the most part... ;)

Mayren: I wish we could both be wrong, I really do.