The Movie: Anna
The Director: Luc Besson
The Cast: Sasha Luss, Helen Mirren, Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy,
The Story: Beneath Anna Poliatova's striking beauty lies a secret that will unleash her indelible strength and skill to become one of the world's most feared government assassins.
The Review:
Luc Besson has been creating bad ass characters for decades going all the way back to La Femme Nikita who was also a female Russian spy so I suppose this movie kind of brings things full circle. Going in, I was basically expecting some solid gun-fu fight scenes along the lines of John Wick and Atomic Blonde and not much of a story which would have been fine but I was surprised that there was actually a decent story as well. Sure, it was predictable but the energetic pacing made it fun and I also liked how Besson would show a scene and then go back three months or whatever to show all the double crossing antics that got the story to that point.
Russian model turned actress Sasha Luss makes a surprisingly smashing debut with this film as she punches and shoots her way through the majority of the film. She actually has a lot of room to show off her acting chops as well as there was a lot less action than I thought there was going to be and a lot more interaction between the characters. Filling out the roster of impressive talent on board for this film are Cillian Murphy, Luke Evans, and Helen Mirren who I would have to say have all done better work in their careers but each of them brings a bit of weight to the production that, without them, may have left things floundering a bit.
As I sit back and think that those first two paragraphs seem like pretty high praise, especially with a mention of the John Wick franchise, I will say that this movie is still a pretty basic action movie that a lot of people may not get in to or enjoy but for me it was just the right amount of indulgence with a solid enough story to keep me engaged. The fight scenes all look a bit choreographed and none of it reaches the level of the once aforementioned Wick movies but it is all still entertaining nonetheless. Besson definitely knows what to do with this genre and I hope we will get to see more from his latest creation.
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