'Hanna'review: Coming-of-age assassin film shoots blanks with borrowed formula

WithSaoirse Ronan,Cate Blanchett. A young girl is trained to become an assassin. Director:Joe Wright. (1:45) PG-13: Violence. At area theaters.

Hollywood is always looking to build a better assassin, whether it'sAngelina Jolie'sEvelyn Salt, the old eliminators in"Red,"Jason Bourneagain, naturally.

But"Hanna's"angle− a teenager trained since birth to be a killing machine − isn't as fresh as it thinks it is. The movie takes elements of"La Femme Nikita"andNatalie Portmanin"The Professional,"along with portions of the comic-book gals who've wielded weapons at the multiplex (take your pick, there have been several in the past year) and plunks it all down in a not-very-brave new world.

Living alone with her ex-CIA gent father (Eric Bana) in an electricity-free cabin far up in the mountains ofFinland, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) shoots an elk in the face the way most kids useFacebook. She can outmaneuver and outrun her old pop before taking a break to learn from the only book they have in their cabin, an encyclopedia.

Then Hanna chooses to alert the very person she and her dad have been training to battle: A matronly murderer named Marissa (Cate Blanchett) whoseTexastwang and business suits make her look like Tootsie with a deadly twist.

Marissa and her team of goons— including one fellow who likes track suits — catch up to Hanna and spirit her toMoroccofor interrogation. But she escapes and hides with a family of hippies, learning a little about a world she never knew existed before she has to get back to head-smashing.

The forced coming-of-age parable that filmmaker Joe Wright laces with fairy-tale symbolism is heavy-handed from the get-go. The director of the stately"Atonement"and"Pride and Prejudice"works extra hard to get in touch with his innerLuc Besson, but for all the jacked-up violence and super DNA backstory, this is still a movie where one guy is surrounded by five thugs who take turns throwing punches until someone thinks to finally take out a knife.

Ronan ("The Lovely Bones") has an ethereal look and a glassy-eyed-doe aura, which may be because Hanna was unnecessarily raised like it was the 17th century (seriously, if you wanted to train the perfect killer, shouldn't she know what a light is?). Hanna turns out to be a cipher, just like the movie.

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