Hitman (the film)

This review co-written by both Clag and Matt. The DVD came out today which is why we watched it. We went to blockbuster first thing after school, watched it quick after, and we're posting this review about 10 minutes after the end of the film. We were that eager to watch it, which is surprising seeing as it was given a 35 score on metacritic. That's because film reviewers don't like games and they are (clotted faggots - Clag). The film is what I expected it to be. The story is set in Russia in St Petersburg. It starts with a short clip of the end. But doesn't explain anything about what happens really. Hitman is given a target which is the president of Russia, who he kills, rather eloquently in his 'special way'. As it happens a lookalike comes up after the hit claiming he is the president and that he is not dead. Hitman searches for witnesses and finds a partner who is a low life prostitute and who helped Belicov (Russian president, cant really spell his name) set up Hitman. He sets out to kill the pretend president and there are lots of cool shoot outs and sword fights (don't know why) where he kills people tracking him down, trying to kill him. At some point his partener tries to seduce hitman but he injects her with tranquiliser (?) instead. There's a surprising amount of nudity and violence for a 15 . I have noticed this in new releases (Into the wild) that are also inappropriate so the rules may have changed. Although in my opinion the film mixes up the right mix of violence nudity and racism to make it a perfect action movie without actually being an 18 and straying into the realm of controversey associated with 18 ratings. The guy at blockbuster told me that this film was waste and that I would be better off getting a different film. From the metacritic reviews I was tempted to believe him. Just that this has special meaning to me: it's a film of a game. The best game-to-film adaptation of a story yet. A perfectly linear story such as Half-Life 2 would make a brilliant adaptation to a film with the added bonus that it's about as close to being called 'art' computer games are ever going to get. As an ever increasing medium for storytelling, games are making themselves heard. Rise up gamers and unite! Glory to the gamers! ect... Anyway, list of game-to-film adaptations so far are:

• GTA (awesome)
• Street Fighter (failure, Kylie Minogue, 'nuff said)
• Wing commander I, II & III (moderate success, although this always makes me chuckle because (Air Cadet) wing commanders are in my school seen as perverts, so when you type '3DO' into google it comes up with 'Wing Commander, adventure of the century'. This sent our whole class into fits of laughter)
• Silent Hill (never played the game so I can't tell, first horror film I watched and it sure as hell scared me)
  

Will post more when I think of some, but the point being that most video game adaptations are crap whereas this one is actually worth watching if you've played the game or are a teenager. Fans of the Hitman series will be proud to show this film as a true example of Video games in the in finest moment as a storytelling medium. That is of course excepting Half-Life which has been my number one game since I bought it. Matt's gone now and I need to sleep. Work tomorrow.