Anna Review

So I'm gonna lead off with the fact that I had no clue that the director was accused or in the midst of dealing with sexual assault accusations, but I'm going to leave that factor out of my review, even though I definitely don't condone that kind of action, especially with a topic I'll get to later in the review. With that being said, this movie did surprise me in a few ways.

Story- So going off of the trailer alone was why I was semi interested in this movie, because it looked like a slightly better but still equivalent Atomic Blonde (which I still have yet to see). I'm just going to touch on the story briefly because it's something done time and time again. It's funny, either I'm not perceptive or I just didn't care but this is another Cold War spy movie. I wonder if filmmakers know there were other eras that had spies during wartime. Like all of them? Anyway, it follows "Anna", a girl slumming around with her deadbeat crook boyfriend, when one day a guy shows up in her shared apartment offering her a way out. While there are several scenes where Anna is scantily clad, the movie is somewhat self aware of the standard spy thriller tropes and almost satirizes these things in a way several times. What I don't like at all about this movie, however, is the fact that basically every new guy she meets, she sleeps with. One has to wonder what the hell he was thinking when he wrote the screenplay, maybe just super horny? Gross. One other thing is there are way too many flash forward and back scenes, but not in a charming way like Pulp Fiction. I don't know if it's how it was written in the script or if it goes back to editing, but I felt it was something to mention.

Cinematography/Props/Editing- So the cinematography for this movie actually looked really nice. It's an ultraviolent movie at times but I like that they didn't just try to go for super bright stylized scenery like John Wick, it tried to do it's own thing which I dig. The props were standard action affair, however it's how the props were used that is unique. Luc Besson saw John Wick kill 3 guys "with a fucking pencil!" and said how can I utilize the props in my movie, and it turned out awesome. I actually wasn't a huge fan of the editing in this movie, I don't know what it was but there were several scenes that needed a bit of trimming to the point where I was genuinely shocked it got past several people.

Acting- Helen Mirren plays a character I feel like I've seen her perform several times before, but she still did a good job. Sometimes in movies like these where it's the "I've gotta give you tough love" character it does come off a bit wooden, but I had no problems with it in this movie. The way they designed her character though, they clearly just watched The Incredibles and said "yes, let's take Edna Mode but have her swear and kill people." Anna is credited as Sasha Luss' first movie, and while you can definitely tell she hasn't been working in the business for years like Tom Hardy or something, she still did a very good job here. She was surprisingly good at conveying emotion in scenes where it was needed. Her other career is as a fashion model, so maybe she took some of those influences with her and how she conveys emotion in pictures to film, which is after all moving images.

Directing- So the most famous (or infamous) film in Luc Besson's repertoire is Leon the Professional. I finally saw it a year or two back, and can confirm while good, it definitely is a weird scenario for a movie in the age difference between the protagonists. He seems to stick closely to the action spy thriller genre, and it somewhat shows. I haven't seen too many of his other outings in the genre, but while although the story is sort of bland, the adaption of his filmmaking is nice to see in this one. He just needs to not be gross if the allegations against him are true.

Soundtrack/Audio- The soundtrack was alright, nothing super dynamic, however it was cool and I'm always a sucker for when they integrate music into the choreographed action, which they did in this movie. There were no glaring errors in the audio like there was in the editing, so that's good.

Final Verdict- B. I was originally planning on going with a B-, but the intelligent way the fight scenes were choreographed made me reconsider.

#Action #SashaLuss #HelenMirren #Thriller #Spy