BRUCE WILLIS - MOVIE REVIEWS: HITMAN

Movies based on video games rarely receive much applause from critics. Hitman is no exception, although it receives less drubbing than most of its genre and a few high scores. Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News makes an argument that a lot of critics have echoed in their reviews of such films: "Like every other attempt at adapting popular games, Hitman is passive entertainment. It's beyond me why filmmakers think gamers will be satisfied sitting on their hands." Manohla Dargis observes that the R-rated movie "exploits every action-flick cliché imaginable and still manages to be dull." As for the performances, Kyle Smith writes in the New York Post: "Bruce Willis and Jason Statham look good bald; [Timothy] Olyphant looks about as comfortable as a freshly shorn cat as he creeps around shooting and fighting and generally trying to be Jason Bourne." But Peter Hartlaub in the San Francisco Chronicle provides some faint praise for the movie. "Hitman," he writes, "is one of the best movies ever made from a video game, which doesn't provide you with very much information. That's like declaring the best meal you've eaten at a strip club, the best love ballad by Kenny Loggins or the best hangover you've had after drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon."

21/11/2007