First look at 'Hanna,' which re-teams Saoirse Ronan and director Joe Wright

By Sarah Sluis

Today I had the opportunity to see two clips from Hanna, an upcoming Focus Features release that sadly won't hit theatres for another six months. The child assassin picture (you heard me right) re-teams Saoirse Ronan and director Joe Wright, who worked together on Atonement. According to Wright, Ronan specifically asked for him to be brought on as a director. Ronan plays Hanna, a girl who grew up isolated

in the woods with her father (Eric Bana). She wants to make her way in the world, but her father requires she kill a CIA agent (Cate Blanchett) first. The spy-thriller like plot undergoes many twists and turns that Wright half-explained; at one point Hanna is captured and thinks she kills the CIA agent--only to meet again with the real agent later.

The move to the action genre is a departure for Wright, who's done buttoned-up English literature adaptations and the classical music-centered The Soloist. In a pleasant surprise, he carries his aesthetic through to Hanna, to pretty impressive preliminary results.

Wright possesses that rare gift that blesses directors like James Cameron and eludes Michael Bay. He can lay out a space immaculately. Each scene had a clear geography, which was a particular challenge in the second scene--set in a prison and including many shots from surveillance cameras. Wright says he has a great editor (Paul Tothill, who has done each of his films), but the fluidity of each scene was very impressive, especially without any musical score or completed sound mixing to help carry the audience through some trickier cuts.

The emotional arc of Hanna was also on display, especially in the second scene we saw, set in a prison. Brought in for questioning, Hanna first acts in the way you expect her to: She's slightly odd due to her years living away from society, and scared and crying. She then turns the tables and swiftly does away with a CIA agent and a few guards, and escapes. The girl is sixteen. The transformation was stunning, just a wee bit humorous, and breathless--just like Hanna's captors, you barely realize what just happened.

Wright says he was drawn to the creative and philosophical possibilities of depicting a "Tarzan" or "Being There" character--someone with an outsider view of society. Hanna's character is an enigma, and one that will reveal herself through her actions, not through words. For example, Hanna starts crying and then "hugs" the CIA agent, straddling her in a slightly off, creepy way. The reason for this is soon revealed--it's the perfect position to snap her neck.

Action movies are too often stupid, boring, and lazily executed--as if all an audience needs is a chase scene and explosion. They also tend to create only superficial characters. As far as I can tell, Hanna will have neither of those problems.

Focus plans to show the footage at New York Comic Con, where I'm sure it will be warmly received.

Spotlight: J.J. Abrams, the guy who can make 'nerd' films everyone sees

By Sarah Sluis

Last weekend the Comic-Con darling Scott Pilgrim vs. the World opened to a disappointing $10 million. The cult movie Kick-Ass also opened soft, to $19.8 million, though I can vouch for both films: they deserved more. This has led to writers sounding the alarm about so-called nerd films that fail to cross over to the rest of the marketplace.

Which made me think of someone who has managed to inspire both cult followings and crossover audiences with his work: J.J. Abrams. "Lost" drew in diehard fans as well as mainstream audiences (although some of the less devoted, such as myself, dropped out before the final season). Last year, he managed to attract wide audiences for that apex of nerdom, Star Trek. Never did I think I would go to a Star Trek movie and not think of all the Trekkie nerds I knew in school, but he did a great job making the story accessible and somehow appealing to the kind of people who wouldn't be caught dead at a sci-fi convention, or who had never even seen a single episode.

What stronger sign that someone has "made it" than when Steven Spielberg collaborates with you? The two are working on a sci-fi/aliens/teen-oriented project called Super 8, which is coming out next summer. Both directors have a populist sensibility that also works well with critics, and I bet they'll be able to come up with something incredible together. Let's not forget that both Jaws (Spielberg) and Cloverfield (Abrams, producer) were both the types of action/horror movies that usually receive a much more low-brow treatment.

This week, Abrams announced that he's also working on the nostalgically inspired 7 Minutes in Heaven, which will focus on two teens who disappear in a closet for their seven minutes in kissing heaven, only to return to find their friends dead. It's a clever pairing that juxtaposes the innocence of youth with murder--isn't that what all teen slasher movies are about? Of course, there could be other forces at work, but a slasher is the first that comes to mind, unless Abrams wants to go The Happening route and create toxic trees.

On a lighter note, Abrams appears to have a thing for numbers, and it's only a matter of time before he can count to ten with his films: There's Super 8, 7 Minutes in Heaven, Mission Impossible III and the planned MI:IV, Star Trek the first and the upcoming Star Trek sequel. Now he just needs to make a film with a five or six.

'Terminator' launches Skynet Research tie-in site

By Sarah Sluis

In preparation for the May 21st release of Terminator Salvation, Warner Bros. has launched a corporate website for Skynet. If you'll recall (perhaps while attending the Terminator 3D ride at Universal Studios, which similarly fleshed out the world of Terminator beyond its film presence), Skynet pioneered the smart machines before everything went horribly, horribly wrong. The site, which is deep enough to simulate reality, has a couple of gems I'll share below, or, of course, you can further explore the site here.

First, Onion-style testimonials, including one from a teacher:

I admit it was strange seeing the little custodian bots scurrying around our grade school, but they have proven themselves time and time again. Now they are the ones that manage the cleanup, leaving teachers more time to provide the one-on-one interaction that the children so desperately need. And the children love them so much that they now hate to leave class at the end of the day!
- Andrea Millery, Principal, Kate Ellen Elementary School, Little Rock

Next, the "Security Installations" offered by Skynet as "Outreach." The list of locations includes comic book stores across the U.S., including a video testimonial from NYC's St. Marks Comics, which you can view below.

Lastly, the whole site is peppered with Big Brother-level creepiness:

"We want to help humanity achieve some of its largest dreams. Wherever you look, you will find that Skynet is taking an active role in human affairs."

"The past is littered with the exploded infrastructures of competitors that were here one day and gone the next. You can rest assured that Skynet is committed to the present with an eye on what is coming over the horizon."

For those who simply can't get enough of this type of thing, die-hard fans can follow updates on the movie on the blog set up by Warner Bros.. Last month, I saw advance footage of Terminator Salvation, introduced by the incredibly energetic McG, which you can check out here.

McG gives a sneak peek of 'Terminator: Salvation'

By Sarah Sluis

Substituting a Levi's jean jacket for a blazer, and spattering profanities alongside phrases like "we were going for the patina of Children of Men and Road Warrior," McG presented two scenes from the new Terminator: Salvation movie yesterday, which Warner Bros. will release this Memorial Day weekend.

Not all the special effects were complete, meaning that animated sketches often subbed for the giant, Transformers-like robots. One, a "harvester," plucks humans from the ground in order to conduct experiments. For those of us that were tots when the first Terminator released, the "harvester" robot bears a strong resemblance to the "tripod" in the children's trilogy frequently assigned in grade school classrooms.

As someone who usually squirms in her seat after the third and fourth chorus of a car chase (give me an Adaptation car crash anytime), I was riveted by the first sequence. Tightly paced, the set-piece not only provided thrills, but also expository information about the robots' astonishing capabilities. It starts out at a gas station (for those plausibly motivated explosions!) and ends up on a desert highway. Bleakly colored, the showdown/chase has a post-apocalyptic look achieved by a Terminator-specific film stock, and the arid location adds to the wasted feel, giving it that wide-open vulnerability of a North by Northwest plane chase. Repeat: I was impressed.

To soothe fans who pictured a comic-action take on Terminator la Charlie's Angels, McG repeatedly mentioned his desire to "honor the mythology" of Terminator. The writing team focused on the plot of the first two films, brushing over Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and altogether abandoning "The Sarah Connor Chronicles." Like a suitor courting James Cameron's daughter, he flew out to visit him and announce his honorable intentions once he signed on to the flick. On Cameron's set, he met Sam Worthington and cast him in the film. The choice sounds suspiciously like a poach, but could end up working in Cameron's favor if Worthington gains star power before Avatar's release.

So Terminator: Salvation has at least one good action sequence, power stars Christian Bale and Sam

Worthington--but, with six-ish writers floating around on IMDB alone, will it have a compelling plot? Time travel, which will figure into the already arced-out Terminator 5 and 6, is an easy way to lose your audience and a film's believability. Sure, the time travel spin is what made the original not-just-another action film, but all those layers of time travel could cross that fine line between satisfying complexity and a hopeless muddle. While McG feels confident they've ironed out all the contradictions, audiences will have to wait until Memorial Day to find out.