Hitman - 1.5/5
Computer game adaptations always make bad movies, so it must have either been blind optimism or boredom that took me to see this. To be fair to myself, a cast that includes both Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood, Die Hard 4.0) and Dougray Scott indicated some potential. At the end of the day, I have to be impressed with the effort that must have gone into producing a film with not a single original element in its entire running time. Not one line of dialogue, not one plot element, not one scene or shot seems to have been original - even some of the flashback footage is lifted directly from James Cameron's Dark Angel TV series.
To be fair, there is a certain amount of guilty pleasure to be had from the film, mainly from Olyphant's performance (even though he manages the seemingly impossible task of over-acting in an emotionally dead role), but in general approach with extreme caution.
The second was much more of a pleasant surprise:
St Trinian's - 3/5
To be honest, the world probably wasn't crying out for a new St Trinian's movie and the trailer didn't do much to raise expectations - they even dared to rip off one of the most famous lines in British cinema ("You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off"). But surprisingly the finished article manages to be genuinely funny a lot of the time.
It's a fairly faithful re-make of the original Belles of St Trinians with some touches to bring it into the present day - so all the expected cliques (Emos, Chavs, Posh totty) are now present and correct. And then there are those pop culture refereces - not only to The Italian Job, but to just about anything they can think of - the presence of Colin Firth in the cast provides particular ammunition (and sure enough, there's a shot of him walking dripping wet. having just emerged from a pond). They manage to keep this just the right side of the too clever over-the-top self-referentiality of, say, Ocean's Twelve.
It maintains some of the originals idiosyncrasies - for example, this is a school where there seem to be no pupils between first year and sixth year. The girls do well enough to keep the film going and entertaining. Russell Brand astonishingly manages to be not irritating stepping into the George Cole role as Flash Harry. Lena Headley and Celia Imrie are underused as teachers and some of the humour falls a bit flat, but on the whole they manage to offer enough to amuse both adults and younger viewers. Rupert Everett does well in the dual role as Headmistress and her brother, but his performance only really takes off in the moments of re-lighting an old flame with Colin Firth's hardline Education Minister (stay for the credits to hear an amusing duet between the two).
There's nothing amazing here and the odd moments jar - like the girls suddenly becoming successful honestly on School Challenge after being told being smart is sexy, but on the whole its surprisingly funny and entertaining.
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