Hanna (2011)

If this movie had been made even three years earlier, it would have starred Liam Neeson in place of Eric Bana, and probably Scarlett Johannsen in place of Saoirse Ronan. Hanna would have been a lesser movie for it - more like the Bourne Identity with a girl, er, woman in place of Matt Damon (I say girl or woman because Hanna is a girl and Miss Johannsen is a woman). Don't get me wrong - I love the Bourne movies, but I don't need to see cheap knock-offs, and it would have been in that other-world version of the movie. But Bana and Ronan take it to a whole different level, and adding Cate Blanchett into the mix makes it a different kind of thing entirely.
Bana, whom I've most recently seen in Troy and the Hulk, seemed younger than in those movies and slimmer, almost like he was his own younger brother. His own younger, very talented brother at that. I've always liked Bana and usually feel that he is being underused, or like in Troy where his acting is so much above the other actors that he is in scenes with that you wonder if he's embarrassed at the role. Don't tell me that he isn't at least seven times the actor that Orlando Bloom is.
Ronan was such a treat in The Lovely Bones, and I'm glad to see her in another role. She owns every scene that shes in and is on par with Bana and Blanchett. Her scenes with the British family on vacation really illustrate her skill and I feel sorry for the actor playing the father, as he seems a bit out of his depth, as does perhaps the daughter, but it's hard to tell as the character is a bit shallow. The fight scenes are amazing, and yet seem very realistic. This isn't a movie with the high flying martial arts of earlier films in this genre, but instead uses the nitty-gritty, highly effective style popularized in the Bourne movies and Daniel Craig's James Bond movies. I like forward to a day when I can see Ronan in an action film fighting alongside Milla Jovovich, hopefully fighting zombies, vampires or ninjas, or even better yet all of the above.
Blanchett is the weak link of the three stars. That's right. That's how good this movie is, when you can say that Cate Blanchett is the weak link. Blanchett is reminiscent of a younger Helen Mirren and this type of role bodes of many great films to come. The only problem I had with her character was the accent. I understand why a CIA handler might need and American accent, and I understand why that might even be a Sourthern accent, but I'm not sure why they had her do one. The first part of the movie I felt like her accent was not nearly as pronounced as in the last part of the film.
This film leaves a lot of things open at the end in almost exactly the same way that the Bourne Identity did, so I will not be surprised to see a sequel or two based upon it and will galdly watch them.

Hanna on IMDB