Synopsis
Never make the weapon the target
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.
2019 Directed by Luc Besson
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.
Sasha Luss Helen Mirren Luke Evans Cillian Murphy Lera Abova Alexander Petrov Nikita Pavlenko Anna Krippa Aleksey Maslodudov Eric Godon Ivan Franěk Jean-Baptiste Puech Adrian Can Alison Wheeler Andrew Howard Jan Oliver Schroeder Louise Parker Sasha Beliaeva Greta Varlese Lauren de Graaf Mikhail Safronov Maria Luss Sergey Bachurskiy Ernest Gromov Sergey Zharkov Eduard Flerov Julia Munrow Jess Liaudin Christopher Craig Show All…
Luc Besson Artemio Benki Marc Shmuger Nicole Crespo Sandra Djurickovic Romuald Drault Eric Mathis Blanche Neumann Andjelija Vlaisavljevic Michele Petternella Gnama Baddy-Dega Romain Lancel
Anna: Professional Killer, アナ, 安娜
Luc Besson’s lifelong obsession with female empowerment has always been hard to square with his lifelong hobby of female objectification. The stylish French auteur and film mogul responsible for the likes of “Lucy,” “The Professional,” and at least nine alleged instances of sexual impropriety loves to build movies around blank women — usually fashion models — who can be reformatted with the power of his own design and costumed with the scant agency he’s afforded them.
In “Anna,” a competent spy thriller that would feel anonymous if not for its slinky bodies and recognizable psychosexual undercurrents, Besson’s signature tendency is expressed with the same literalness that it was in “The Fifth Element” and “La Femme Nikita.” Why start being subtle…
1985
FIVE YEARS LATER
3 YEARS EARLIER
2 YEARS LATER
MOSCOW ONE YEAR LATER
PARIS
1 YEAR EARLIER
NEW YORK
1 YEAR LATER
Besson apparently saw ATOMIC BLONDE and figured he had a fiduciary duty to Europacorp shareholders to rip it off. Anyway this is a virtual remake of NIKITA perked up a little bit with a really wearisome time-shifting structure, complete with constant dipshit references to matryoshka dolls. Is this worth sitting through for the one very good action sequence about 40 minutes in? I dunno, but it's not worth sitting through for the really gross surface-level female empowerment stuff coming from a guy who knocked up a 15-year-old girl he met when she was 12.
Rotten Tomatoes: 36%
Metacritic Metascore: 40
IMDB: 6.6
52/100
Release Date: 21 June 2019
Distributor: Summit Entertainment
Budget: $35M
Worldwide Gross: $31.3M
Olga: "Trouble never sends a warning."
SYNOPSIS: Beneath Anna Poliatova's (Sasha Luss') striking beauty lies a secret that will unleash her indelible strength and skill to become one of the world's most feared government assassins.
It's clear that the Charlize Theron 2017 smash hit, "Atomic Blonde", has set a new precedent for the female action hero subgenre with Red Sparrow and now Anna being released in consecutive years. While Anna doesn't cross Atomic Blonde's threshold, it's still a serviceable action flick that definitely surpassed my high expectations of "Red Sparrow".
And yes, it's clear…
LUC BESSON: Oh-ho, the Americans, they have no taste for originality. It’s sequel this, reboot that.
FRENCH CRITIC: Yes, Hollywood runs around like headless chickens, throwing everything they can into audiences’ faces, “you loved this before, you will love it again, no?”
LUC BESSON: Exactly. We French invented the motion picture, and it is we who shall shepherd it through this dark time. My new film breaks new ground, offering something never seen before. It is about this woman. She’s quite beautiful, yes.
FRENCH CRITIC: Oooh, I am intrigued already.
LUC BESSON: But in addition, she is an assassin.
FRENCH CRITIC: An assassin? Even though she is a beautiful woman?
LUC BESSON: Yes, yes, it is hard to imagine, but…
Cillian I did it for you. Twice.
How and why is he even in this? Is Nolan not paying him enough for continuously elevating his shit?!
When will Luc Besson learn that putting a gun in your female protagonist's hands and pretending she's a badass doesn't mean you can subject her to incredibly male-gazey camerawork and costumes and constantly having male characters hit on her? They don't exist to balance eachother out chief.
Imagine if this was 30 minutes shorter and actually interesting.
Also, that pacing was creative, but extremely daunting.
At least the action scenes looked good, I guess.