Scene 1: Surprise! We don't begin with close-ups of a naked babe! Hannah, dressed like a fairytale Snow White, is running through the icy wilderness of northern Finland, hunting reindeer and being trained in ninja killing techniques by her father, Erik (Eric Bana, left) Not Prince Erik? Then they sit by the fire in their hut, while Erik reads to her from a book of weird trivia. There's a montage, with the two of various ages.
Scene 2: Cut to a super-secret lab, where the Evil Queen ..er,, I mean Head Spy Marissa gives us a Plot Dump: Erik was an American agent who went rogue and vanished, with the state secrets of every country in Europe. Oh, and he killed his girlfriend and stole her infant daughter. Wait -- so Erik is an evil kidnapper? Or is he the Huntsman in Snow White?
Scene 3: The American agency sends men with guns and weird death's-head masks to shoot up the hut and capture Hannah. Erik runs away (way to abandon your adopted daughter/kidnapping victim, dude).
Scene 4: Hannah awakens in a scary underground facility, kills some guards with an eyelash and a paperclip, and escapes through a hatch -- into the desert! (I don't think we're in Finland anymore, Dorothy.) She walks away, with no food, water, or shelter.
Suddenly she encounters two English kids on a caravan (camping holiday): the 10-year old Miles and the teenage Sofia, who tries to flirt with her ("I think I'd like to be a lesbian, and date you, but then marry a man"). Erik has not taught Hannah any social skills, so all she can do is rattle off the details of her screen persona: "I live in Leipzig, population .9 million. My favorite classes are history and sport."
The kids ask Hannah if she wants a ride, but she refuses. You're in the desert with no food and water! Accept the ride!
Scene 5: Fortunately, there is a Berber camp right over the ridge, and then a full-blown Middle Eastern city drawn directly from an Orientalist fantasy, with camels and everything. Erik helpfully taught Hannah Arabic, so she talks her way into a hotel room, where she is delighted by electric lights but horrified by television.
Scene 6: Hannah reunites with Sofia, her brother, and her free-wheeling hippie parents, who think that it's perfectly wonderful for a teenager to be traveling through Morocco alone. When they move on to Spain, Hannah sneaks into their trunk for a free ride. Apparently Erik told her that, if they are separated, they should meet in Berlin.
First up: he interrogates and then kills the Moroccan hotelier.
Meanwhile, Erik takes off his clothes and jumps in the ocean. I don't know why, but beefcake is beefcake.
I think Hannah's boy is played by Alvaro Cervantes (left).
Scene 9: Marissa does some recon on her own, and interrogates Hannah's grandmother, the mother of the agent Erik killed. Then the Big Bad Wolf kills Grandma!
Another Plot Dump: There was a secret experiment using genetic manipulation to create super-warriors. When the project was terminated, they killed all the babies, except Hannah, whom Erik saved because he erroneously believed that he was her biological father.
Scene 10: In bed, Hannah and Sofia hold hands, exchange friendship bracelets, and kiss. It's all extreme closeups of eyes and hands. Of course, the fans are all screaming: "Just because they kiss doesn't mean they're lesbians! Hannah can't be a lesbian! She's the hero! And Sofia says that she would like to be a lesbian, meaning she isn't!
Please -- Hannah refuses to kiss a boy, but kisses a girl. Could you get more obvious?
Scene 11: When Isaaks shows up, Hannah runs away, leaving the family at his mercy (way to abandon your friends!) Marissa arrives to interrogate Sofie's 10-year old brother: "You like Hannah, don't you? You must be sexually attracted to her, because you're a boy, and all boys are sexually attracted to girls, because no gay people exist. So tell me where she is?"
Scene 12: Hanna goes to what is apparently a safe house in the midst of a fairy-tale theme park. The owner, Kneper, keeps up the fairy-tale motif even in his bedroom upstairs, which presumably park visitors wouldn't be privy to. Flamboyant, creepy, crazy -- he dances to the tune of "The Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt. I get it -- he thinks he's really living in a fairy tale. But he's nice to Hannah, which means he's doomed.
Isaaks and Marissa show up, and Hannah hides while the guy is being interrogated and killed downstairs (way to abandon your friends yet again).
Scene 12: Hannah goes to her dead grandmother's house. Erik is there, and explains that he is the Huntsman who kept her safe from the Evil Queen...er, Marissa the Agency Head because he liked her more than the twenty other babies who were killed. Isaaks and Marissa show up, and Hannah runs away. She hears Erik being shot in the distance.
I'm getting tired of the trained assassin, who knows twenty ways of killing people with a slice of salami, abandoning her friends.
Wait -- what happens now? The girl is alone in the world. All her family and friends are dead. She has no money, no social skills. I guess she could move into Grandma's apartment and get a job as an Arabic translator.
Gay characters: Hannah, obviously. Probably Isaaks.
Beefcake: Not much other than that one Erik underwear shot -- here's one of Isaak's henchmen to tide you over -- but in a movie like this, the mere absence of girl bods is cause for celebration.
My grade: A+.