Hitman, the movie: don't believe the haters

Granted, I'd had a couple of drinks before the show, but I thought it was pretty damn good. It struck me that the movie played out as a series of missions, and that the director didn't stray far from what made the game series so fun.

Agent 47 is more interesting in some ways than 007 because, while he's an expert assassin he's also socially inept. As for his background, they didn't bother to waste screentime revealing what we already knew of him from the games. While I appreciated that as a gamer, it could alienate newcomers.

I hope you'll enjoy the movie for what it is, a faithful translation of the game.

Haven't seen the flick yet, but there's one thing that bugs me that sticks out in the previews... Couldn't they have tossed some makeup on that pate, or at least CG airbrushed it? I mean, 47's BALD, he doesn't shave it.

He could have some peach fuzz that he needs to shave. I mean they don't exactly go into detail on how bald he is due to that special process (Won't say it so that I don't spoil it or something). There could be slight patchiness or something. If the only thing about the movie that can be picked on is that he looks like he shaves his head instead of being naturally bald then I'd say the movie is a supreme hit for the hitman.

It was OK.
Thats it.

Running Man wrote:

It struck me that the movie played out as a series of missions, and that the director didn't stray far from what made the game series so fun.

Sounds banal and pointless to me.

ouch.

Wrestlevania wrote:

Sounds banal and pointless to me.

Now now, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

Running Man wrote:

the director didn't stray far from what made the game series so fun.

Timothy Olyphant pauses in the midst of the carnage to arrange the bodies in homoerotic positions? Awesome!

Have to say, the previews I've seen looked so godawful that I'm not going to spend eight dollars to find out if they were an accurate representation or not.

I enjoyed it. Though there were some blatant oddities, but it was a fun, violent movie full of yummy Olyphant.

Timothy Olyphant looks like a sissy. They should have gotten Jason Statham, now he's yummy. If by yummy you mean badass.

Jason Statham has always seemed to me like a clone of the guy who was in TV series "The Sentinel" and first season of 24, only with worse acting and less personality. I'll take Olyphant over Statham any day, although ideally I'd rather see a carefully picked newcomer that would blow them both away.

I would have said Clive Owen, but he doesn't look like he fits the role.

I will still hold true to my statement that 47 should have dark sudden eyes and never, ever even look remotely happy. In the trailers he looks like a kid that is only a chocolate ice cream cone away from smiling.

Pfft the Emo killer look is so played out. Get that man a chocolate ice cream cone and lets see him smile! Death needs more happiness imo.

Devmani wrote:

Pfft the Emo killer look is so played out. Get that man a chocolate ice cream cone and lets see him smile! Death needs more happiness imo.

So it looks like you need a movie in which the killer is happy about killing and it's a highlight of their day. American Psycho should fit your needs then. He was quite happy and joyful in his killings.

... until he [color=white]turned out to be a robot[/color].

I saw it tonight and liked it. Surprisingly interesting and Timothy Olyphant does a decent job. I would have preferred someone older and more natural at someone lacking emotion but he does the job. The "love" story is actually pretty good and I like Agent 47's role in it. It is pretty cool to see a movie where the hero is THE MAN.

Roger Ebert wrote:

The movie, directed by Xavier Gens, was inspired by a best-selling video game and serves as an excellent illustration of my conviction that video games will never become an art form -- never, at least, until they morph into something else or more.

...

Other scenes, which involve Agent 47 striding down corridors, an automatic weapon in each hand, shooting down opponents who come dressed as Jedi troopers in black. These scenes are no doubt from the video game.

Because naturally, only video games are replete with shootouts and explosions. Hollywood never ever ever throws these things in just because.

Ebert, you fat f*ck, maybe get your head out of your ass and quit spouting nonsense about things you clearly don't understand. Look I'm not going to try and argue that the Hitman series is art, but I will stress that it's a stealth game and if you're getting in running gunfights, it's usually because you screwed up. The Hitman games simply do not make surviving massive shootouts very easy, despite the massive armaments you can accumulate. Hey, maybe people do play it that way, but the games sure as hell don't encourage or reward it.

In other words, you look like a giant douche when you go around passing judgment over games you know nothing about.

Hear, hear !

Ebert's review of Hitman was pretty grating.

And the thing is, he seems to like the movie. He gave it 3 stars on his 4 star scale. But he just couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a snide entirely uninformed comment about video games.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
Running Man wrote:

the director didn't stray far from what made the game series so fun.

Timothy Olyphant pauses in the midst of the carnage to arrange the bodies in homoerotic positions? Awesome!

Sold! You've got my $8.50.

I don't always agree with Ebert, but I rarely feel that his reviews are groundless. I respect his opinion.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Ebert, you fat f*ck, maybe get your head out of your ass and quit spouting nonsense about things you clearly don't understand.

In other words, you look like a giant douche when you go around passing judgment over games you know nothing about.

Whoah, is this a bit of carry-over hate from his not feeling videogames are art (which I happen to agree with, mostly.) Whatever he said about its accuracy as a videogame movie, he gave it THREE stars. And I'm pretty sure he rates on a four star scale (Pulp Fiction is a four star movie.) I mean, he gave Blade Runner three stars. BLADE RUNNER. That places his score way above the average score assigned to the movie by other critics, which makes sense because he's never been one to fault a movie for being entertaining.

The man watches movies for a living. I can't fault every human being on the planet for not being fully-immersed in my hobby.

unntrlaffinity wrote:

Whoah, is this a bit of carry-over hate from his not feeling videogames are art (which I happen to agree with, mostly.) Whatever he said about its accuracy as a videogame movie, he gave it THREE stars. And I'm pretty sure he rates on a four star scale (Pulp Fiction is a four star movie.) I mean, he gave Blade Runner three stars. BLADE RUNNER. That places his score way above the average score assigned to the movie by other critics, which makes sense because he's never been one to fault a movie for being entertaining.

Carry-over? No, it's entirely about his video game comments. I haven't even seen this movie, so it's not like I feel the need to defend it. And as you can see above, I did see that he liked the movie.

unntrlaffinity wrote:

The man watches movies for a living. I can't fault every human being on the planet for not being fully-immersed in my hobby.

Then he should keep his judgments to things he actually exposes himself to. If I said Citizen Kane was crap without ever watching it, I'd look pretty damn stupid.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Carry-over? No, it's entirely about his video game comments. I haven't even seen this movie, so it's not like I feel the need to defend it. And as you can see above, I did see that he liked the movie.

I would've seen, but as is the way of the internet, you posted while I was posting, so I didn't see it.

He doesn't feel games are art. I respect that, even if I don't completely agree. And his main beef is that he feels art requires authorial control, which enters the debate into semantics, but I can see his point. And I don't see the problem with a person paid for his opinion to offer his opinion, even on video games as they relate to movies. And I would like to point out that I've gone through a scene like that in Hitman (I was in a mansion, I tripped an alarm, and as it turns out, I killed a sh*tload of guys and jumped out a window.) So his assumption is hardly erroneous.

I guess I don't see how those few comments make him a "fat f*ck". Lord knows, we should all share my opinion on everything.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Then he should keep his judgments to things he actually exposes himself to. If I said Citizen Kane was crap without ever watching it, I'd look pretty damn stupid.

Aren't you calling a man names for his review of a movie you haven't even seen? Not to mention I disagree with this logic completely. We could find countless examples of the GWJ crew, myself included, doing just that. The PS3, the latest Apple product, the latest Microsoft product, we make judgments on products all the time that we don't have first-hand knowledge of. There's too much media out there for it to be otherwise.

He's completely talking out his ass and deserves to be called on it. He's condemning video games as a whole based on what he saw in a movie? Hitman is not Call of Duty, Gears of War, or any of a hundred games entirely focused on huge gun battles. Like I said, when you get into a firefight in Hitman, it's because you screwed up. I don't expect him to know that. But I also don't expect him to pretend to know things about the game because he watched a movie from Hollywood, which is practically synonymous with gunfire and explosions.

unntrlaffinity wrote:

Aren't you calling a man names for his review of a movie you haven't even seen?

I never said his review of the movie was wrong. I'm saying his review of the game was wrong. Because that's what that part is, a review of a game he's never played.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
unntrlaffinity wrote:

Aren't you calling a man names for his review of a movie you haven't even seen?

I never said his review of the movie was wrong. I'm saying his review of the game was wrong. Because that's what that part is, a review of a game he's never played.

I think I get where you're coming from, I just didn't get the same idea from that statement. If anything, I felt it was condemning the movie from a general perception of what the game is like based on the director's decisions on how to film it. And I guess I feel having expected him to play every game a movie is based on, or read every book, comic, etc. is expecting a lot. And I also feel that his being able to put his feelings about video games as art aside and rate a movie on its on merits is admirable, and outweighs the snarkiness in those few lines.

I look at it this way: if all I knew about comics, fantasy or role-playing, or sci-fi came from movies, I might think those genres suck too.

When a film shoot is designed like an FPS level, it is a good sign that the movie is pretty weak. (exception: the bit in the Incredibles that seemed like being in NOLF again.)

Crossing genres is difficult to get right. For every Sin City, there is a Punisher, Judge Dredd or Batman & Robin.

What I'd like to do w/ Ebert is to watch Tarkovsky's Stalker and then play the game with him. It is possible that he wouldn't like it. As has been mentioned here and elsewhere, games and film are very different media. Certainly the game and the film have a very different take on the story, but both are well done and both pay homage to the source material.

kilroy0097 wrote:
Devmani wrote:

Pfft the Emo killer look is so played out. Get that man a chocolate ice cream cone and lets see him smile! Death needs more happiness imo.

So it looks like you need a movie in which the killer is happy about killing and it's a highlight of their day. American Psycho should fit your needs then. He was quite happy and joyful in his killings.

"Stop looking at it and lick it!"

What does Running Man have in common with these things?:

IMAGE(http://pws.byu.edu/tree_tour/images/tree116small.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.west-norfolk.gov.uk/images/shrub.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.global-b2b-network.com/direct/dbimage/50322257/Sun_Flowers.jpg)

He has roots?

He leaves?