The two Hitman movies only get brought up during discussions of terrible video game movies. The first came out in 2007 and the second dropped in 2015, both well within the era of the “video game movie curse.” I take issue with that once-common phrase since there were plenty of good films in the genre. Neither Hitman movie makes my point in that matter. Agent 47 has to blend in, but his two cinematic appearances are both drawing attention on Netflix.
The Hitman Movies Sneak Onto Netflix’s Top Ten
We all know the Hitman franchise. They follow Agent 47, a bald contract killer who carries out various impossible murders in lavish environments. Hitman: Blood Money remains one of the strongest stealth games ever, cementing the franchise’s legacy. The modern incarnations are still fun, putting absurd resources toward the same straightforward gameplay concept. It’s always thrilling to infiltrate a complex virtual environment, pull off the perfect murder, and disappear without a trace. The Hitman movies capture absolutely none of the appeal of the games. Instead, they’re mindless action movies with minimal appeal. They take different approaches to the source material, but they’re both complete wastes of time and money. Amazingly, both films set out with the expectation of something more to come. Hitman (2007) intended to produce a sequel, and Hitman: Agent 47 had a producer who planned to build a cinematic universe.
The first Hitman movie saw Justified star Timothy Olyphant take the role. French director Xavier Gens leaned into the dreary high-society aesthetic to create something truly boring. The film’s action is certainly violent, but it lacks impact, and the terrible special effects keep everything far from believability. It made a decent amount of money at the box office, but the widespread critical condemnation pushed it away from a potential sequel. Eight years later, Fox dropped Hitman: Agent 47. The second movie’s plot borrows a bit from the first game, but it’s still miles from the source material. It has the misfortune of coming out after John Wick, making all of its action scenes look tragically amateurish. The critics over at Rotten Tomatoes gave Hitman a 16% positive score and Agent 47 an 8%. The first one isn’t twice as good, but they are both terrible.
I think we should probably stop making Hitman movies. There are many good video game movies now, but that doesn’t mean every major franchise needs box-office success. In his iconic review of Hitman, Roger Ebert famously declared it one of the best examples of the distance between video games and art. He didn’t value interactive narrative as a medium, but I think he has part of a point there. Ebert frames it as if the filmmakers took the source material and made art around it. In truth, they removed the interactive elements that made the Hitman games art, forcing them to do something else.
