★★
Beneath Anna Poliatova's striking beauty lies a secret that will unleash her indelible strength and skill to become one of the world's most feared government assassins.
Classification: 15
Alluring performances and gorgeous scenery aren't enough to distract from the deviating editing and an uninspired script from Luc Besson's latest spy thriller. Sasha Luss commands the screen in her physical role as the titular Anna but Besson merely stitches these few exciting action scenes together in a constantly shifting timeline as he tries to recontextualise every scene making the constant twists more tedious than interesting. Anna also continues Besson's interpretations of strong female characters through objectification, violence and suffering. Anna is a pawn in the great game between the KGB and the CIA in the late 1980s to early 1990 and her femininity is seen as both an object and weapon mostly by the men of both organisations. Besson tries to use this as a platform to create a story of female empowerment with Anna but it never strikes at any emotional cords only delivering a few interesting locales and action scenes within.
The most engaging element of Anna does come from the performances as the actors don't slouch around. Unfortunately one of the main issues with Anna is its script so even Helen Mirren or Cillian Murphy are unable to take their characters beyond their standard stereotype. Its the performance that keeps Anna captivating not its characters as Anna's backstory does allow for Luss to deliver some more emotional scenes in contrast to her stoic, badass assassin which makes it interesting just because of variety. Its a standard bag of predictable character traits and plot development that doesn't really do much to set it apart in its own genre. Helen Mirren as Anna's KGB handler is a highlight mostly because of Mirren's chewing of the scenery rather than any distinguishable feature of the character in the story.
Action wise, Anna is quite exciting mostly because Besson allows the action to really breathe in clear edited sequences that emphasise the great physical work of Luss and the entire stunt team. Hand to hand combat and gunplay flow together in really smooth action set pieces clearly taking inspiration from the popular John Wick series. Choreography and cinematography work in tandem to make sure Anna is the centre focus of every kill and ratchets the tension when it appears she could be overpowered. However, the action is only compelling at a technical level as very little of these sequences have any actual bearing on the story beyond "cool fight scene" and Anna's frustrating editing of the story revelations just makes these scenes almost redundant.
Anna's few bright spots showed the potential of Sasha Luss as an actress as she is able to hold her own in scenes with Mirren, Murphy and Luke Evans extremely well. Its a pretty decent debut as a lead actress but Besson's lack of originality harms any other potential the film could have had. A missed opportunity was the setting of the film, the main timeline of the film taking place between 1988 and 1990 during the most fragile times for the Soviet Union and KGB but this historical significance plays no part in any story element. Besson is more focused on the exploitation and action rather than an interesting commentary on the subject matter or creating a unique environment for the actors and script to form its own story.
Nothing truly surprising or captivating beyond surface-level enjoyment, Anna is a disappointment especially in a cinematic landscape with a renewed vigour for strong female characters. Its globe-trotting storyline allows for some nice cinematography of famous cities but the actual adventure of the film is stilted by questionable screenwriting and editing that just becomes frustrating by the third act. Luss and Mirren are given only a few moments a piece to allows for any actual artistic thought into a woman's place in the dangerous world of spycraft but those moments are overshadowed by Besson's focus on glamour, violence and sex. It's a film putting the focus on all the wrong things which harms the overall product's potential and leaves it as just another forgettable piece of Soviet-era spy drama.
Director: #LucBesson
Cast: #SashaLuss, #LukeEvans, #CillianMurphy, #HelenMirren
Release Date: July 5th 2019
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database
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