Hitman: Agent 47 is a reboot of Xavier Genss Hitman, the 2007 movie that starred Timothy Olyphant as a bald gun-for-hire on the run from the Russian military. It was based on a video game series developed by IO Interactive, so you had to lower your expectations in order to have a good time. Clearly uninterested in making a better movie, 20th Century Fox brought in Skip Woods, who also wrote A Good Day To Die Hard, to work on the script. They mustve told him to target the comic book fans, too, because our genetically engineered hero (played by Homelands Rupert Friend) moves just like a superhero, taking out his adversaries with bombs, helicopters and some astonishingly athletic gunplay and.well, lets not get bogged down in plot. When it comes to movies about killers with abnormal speed, intelligence and strength, Wanted did that whole yarn back in 2008 (with a naked Angelina Jolie, no less). Small world dept: Thomas Kretschmann, who played James McAvoys father in that film, also appears here as one of the villains. But thats probably just a coincidence.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
