Who'd have thought that the director of costume and period piece movies PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and ATONEMENT would make a sci-fi action movie? To be fair, ATONEMENT does have an excellent action sequence, and his films do have interesting female characters, one of whom happens to be played by Saoirse Ronan, the star of HANNA.

Actually, from the outset the film plays more like a Bourne movie, except with Bourne as a teenage girl. It's starts with the somewhat feral Hanna living in the Artic Circle with her father (Eric Bana) who is teaching her not only survival techniques but also more useful life skills such as languages and geography, which is just as well when she has to leave her snowbound hideaway pursued by a ruthless government agent (Cate Blanchett), before rejoining her father later.

Cue the travelogue part of the movie as we follow Hanna through Morocco, where she joins up with a liberal couple of old hippies - brilliantly portrayed by Jason Flemyng and Olivia Williams (Dollhouse) – and their much more down-to-earth daughter (Jessica Barden) and her nerdy little brother. Blanchett's character Marissa also sends a psychopathic German (Tom Hollander) and his skinhead cronies after Hanna and it's not long before they all meet up in Berlin, with the inevitable big action chase.

Ronan is perfectly cast as Hanna, with her looks giving her the requisite cold, almost otherworldly, appearance (which worked so well in THE LOVELY BONES) needed for the highly trained assassin. She also handles the action sequences deftly. On the other hand, Cate Blanchett, one of the greatest actresses of her generation, doesn't seem to gel with the character and fails to give her usual impressive performance.

As for the science-fiction; well it is mostly alluded to, although not as overtly overlooked as in NEVER LET ME GO. Hanna's secret is revealed towards the end of the film, but it is not that hard to guess either. However, that doesn't lessen the impact of the film, which is a solid action movie with some great performances that won't disappoint fans of the genre, while remaining smart enough for the sci-fi audience.

HANNA is in cinemas now.