Anna

It's seemingly impossible for an action movie to get an 18 certificate anymore it seems. A brutal assassination halfway through Anna involving a fork tells me that anyway. It's the kind of moment that would take your breath away. The same reaction had by every person who has the good or bad fortune to run into Anna.

Anna Poliatova has had a tough life. Orphaned young, married to a beast who treats her like a receptacle, friends with scum who drag her along on crime sprees. She's a Ken Loach special. After an arrest she's offered a choice. Join the KGB or die. She chooses the former and it sets her up for a career in wetwork and a promise of freedom after 3 years. A promise from the Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti means nothing though and Anna knows it. But she's a survivor and they've given her the skills to take care of business.

This film contains little original. But it does what it does well. It's darkly funny, it's action scenes are well choreographed and violently executed, it has an anti hero who plays fast and loose with the rigid sexual politics of mainstream movies and it contains a highly entertaining performance from a woman I didn't recognise as Helen Mirren until the credits rolled at the end. Who cares if a movie rips off half a dozen others when the Queen of British cinema is in mega backstabbing wagon mode.

Loads of people will no doubt. They'll spot La Femme Nikita in there, beats from Kickass, Mission Impossible 4, Gorky Park and more recently Red Sparrow along with plenty of others. There's no denying Anna is a derivative 118 minutes but unless you're a miserable fucker you'll leave the cinema smiling and with your bloodthirst sated. Mirren as always rocks it but Sasha Luss in her first leading role does well too. When she's in combat mode she looks convincing and her glacial Soviet beauty leaves you in no doubt that everyone, men or women would do her bidding in a second. Director Luc Besson brings a European sensibility to proceedings in regard to Anna's love life. Everyone is in her sights and Besson neither ignores that fact or exploits it. It's refreshing and something that would be ignored had this been an American production. They'd focus on the violence and espionage but here she feels like a more rounded character. But not exactly a human one.

She's a tall blonde Terminator and the sheer OTT nature of some of the action will leave you laughing more than anything else. Then in the latter part of the movie some of her actions involving innocent people just doing their jobs will leave a bad taste in your mouth. It's hard to empathise with a remorseless killing machine. Some viewers may struggle here but when you willingly pay to see a film about an assassin you have to expect a whiff of collateral damage. Despite the gratuitous bloodshed seeing a woman action hero letting loose is something that never gets old. It just doesn't happen enough sadly.

Anna is silly violent fun. It's shattered timeline may throw you at first but soon enough you'll settle into it's rhythm's and find some of your initial expectations confounded by the way the story plays out. Plus Cillian Murphy is in it. An aul touch of Irish class. Why isn't he a global megastar yet? Anyone?