WARNING: The following contains spoilers for "Forest," the pilot episode of Amazon's Hanna.
The super soldier concept forever fascinates Hollywood. We've seen it with franchises like Universal Soldier, Ultraviolet and Resident Evil, and in cartoons made for the small screen like Max Steel and Action Man. On live-action TV, though, the one that stands out most is Dark Angel, which starred Jessica Alba as a genetically modified warrior named Max.
Now, when word first emerged that Marvel was making an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, many expected it to have super soldiers similar to Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes. Sadly, with its network television restrictions, that wasn't the case. What we got instead is your pretty typical spy agency adventure. However, one franchise that's finally giving us a super soldier unlike any other on TV is Amazon's Hanna.
Let's be real. After watching the likes of Black Widow, Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier, we deserve to see this concept fleshed out with soldiers best described as inhuman. We want them taking part in action sequences that'll leave us on the edge of our seats (see Bucky's battle with Steve Rogers on the freeway), with intense fight choreography that leaves our minds blown (similar to movies involving John Wick and Jason Bourne). Netflix recently did this, going all out on the aggression, gore and bloodshed with Polar, and Amazon is cultivating a similar emotional tale in Hanna, which involves a teenage girl that the CIA was grooming to become a European super soldier.
It's glaring how much the pilot is what S.H.I.E.L.D. could have been, marrying modern actions flicks like Mile 22 with an origin story similar to Black Widow's, as Hanna (Esme Creed-Miles) and her father Erik (Joel Kinnaman) try to evade the CIA's Marissa (Mireille Enos), the woman who bred these soldiers from babies.
The 2011 movie starring Saoirse Ronan was great, but the show allows way more to be fleshed out -- the way Erik and Hanna's mom Johanna stole her, the girl's grimy training in snowy forests, her living in a cave, Hanna sacrificing herself to CIA captivity for Erik to escape and the revenge plot spawned by the revelation that Marissa killed Johanna are all elements of the recipe for success.
There's a lot of meat here, especially as we can fully survey the super soldier program and the mothers it brainwashed. Even more interesting is there are several other babies who've grown up like Hanna -- walking, talking teenage killers under the CIA. We even glimpsed a training setup similar to Marvel's Red Room for Russian spies, which adds another dimension to the narrative.
The way Hanna's evolved into a one-woman army definitely feels like a female Winter Soldier, and it's undoubtedly the main draw of the series. But the fact that the show can detail other weapons like her, and why the CIA ventured into such sinister territory, has us all excited to see what'll unfold.
It's like Project Rebirth meets Weapon X, as we don't even know which experiments failed, which succeeded, which were aborted and who else like Hanna exists out there on the run. The point is, with her on the lam being hunted, the possibilities are endless. In terms of style, the show has a European artistic flair to it visually, and a musical aesthetic that's just as haunting as what the Chemical Brothers did for the film.
Hanna looks great, sounds amazing and is on track to end up being the TV series Marvel or DC wish they put out on their respective streaming services.
Created by David Farr, Hanna stars Esme Creed-Miles, Mireille Enos, and Joel Kinnaman. The full season premieres today on Amazon Prime Video.