It's Not Just Having A Good Idea...
Over my vacation, I watched two movies via pay-per-view (actually back-to-back). They both had the same idea, but were wildly different movies. The movies were Hanna and Colombiana, and the common idea was "girl trains to be an assassin to avenge family member's death." The idea was good, but you need to execute the idea in order to have a story. As it happens, Hanna did it more interestingly, but both were well-crafted movies.
In Hanna, the star is a young girl of 15 or so, raised in very primitive conditions in a sub-arctic forest. She can (and does, in a long and dialog-free scene) kill a deer with a bow and arrow, but she's never seen a TV or electric lighting. She has been given the option by her dad to rejoin civilization, which means that the CIA, in the person of Cate Blanchett, will try to kill her and her dad. She decides that she's ready, and, well, things get interesting.
In Colombiana, the 8-year-old title character sees her parents murdered, and has to run and evade the murderers. She eventually gets to her uncle in Chicago, and demands to be trained as an assassin. He does so, and we next see her at age 26 or so, played by Zoe Saldana, as she pulls off a brilliantly-planned hit in an LA jail. From there, things get interesting.
Hanna is the more poetic of the two movies, and perfectly willing to let the camera run with little or no dialog. It's also somewhat more realistic in its portrayal of violence and the capabilities of its protagonists. Since the girl Hanna has never seen civilization or associated with people other than her father, there are a number of fish out of water moments, and the movie has a lovely mirror of the first and last scenes.
Colombiana is more Hollywood, with a higher body count. Since the lead character is raised in big cities, there's no fish out of water moments, but the lead character has more people to react to and a bigger emotional range. Entertaining, but not as "wow" as Hanna.
Writers are frequently asked where they get their ideas from. Hanna and Colombiana demonstrate that getting the idea is the easy part. Telling the story is what's difficult.
In Hanna, the star is a young girl of 15 or so, raised in very primitive conditions in a sub-arctic forest. She can (and does, in a long and dialog-free scene) kill a deer with a bow and arrow, but she's never seen a TV or electric lighting. She has been given the option by her dad to rejoin civilization, which means that the CIA, in the person of Cate Blanchett, will try to kill her and her dad. She decides that she's ready, and, well, things get interesting.
In Colombiana, the 8-year-old title character sees her parents murdered, and has to run and evade the murderers. She eventually gets to her uncle in Chicago, and demands to be trained as an assassin. He does so, and we next see her at age 26 or so, played by Zoe Saldana, as she pulls off a brilliantly-planned hit in an LA jail. From there, things get interesting.
Hanna is the more poetic of the two movies, and perfectly willing to let the camera run with little or no dialog. It's also somewhat more realistic in its portrayal of violence and the capabilities of its protagonists. Since the girl Hanna has never seen civilization or associated with people other than her father, there are a number of fish out of water moments, and the movie has a lovely mirror of the first and last scenes.
Colombiana is more Hollywood, with a higher body count. Since the lead character is raised in big cities, there's no fish out of water moments, but the lead character has more people to react to and a bigger emotional range. Entertaining, but not as "wow" as Hanna.
Writers are frequently asked where they get their ideas from. Hanna and Colombiana demonstrate that getting the idea is the easy part. Telling the story is what's difficult.