Hanna's comment: Amazon, the latest mix of violence and intrigue

"Hanna, you mean this movie with Eric Bana and Saoirse Ronan?"

This is probably your first reaction after hearing about the television adaptation of Joe Wright's 2011 thriller Hanna by Amazon. Your second reaction: does a two-hour film on a series of eight episodes really work?

If the driver, streaming on Amazon Video now, everything seems to indicate that it will be an unequal journey.

Joel Kinnaman from Netflix Altered carbon replaces Bana as father of action Erik Heller. The show starts with a bang while Heller kidnaps (or saves?) A little girl from a mysterious settlement in Romania and escapes into the wild – without however making huge sacrifices in course.

Hanna, a 15-year-old teenager who plays Esme Creed-Miles instead of Ronan, is now 15 to find the baby. Erik sports a clbadic survival beard, living in a surprisingly comfortable cave and looking for his supper. He also caused Hanna to become a ruthless killing machine – think X-23 Logan – Who is able to smother his father. Only, he complains of not having it done as fast as he would like it to.

Parents, huh? They are never happy.

This moment and the training that follows teach us all we need to know about Erik's attitude to their relationship, but it is to Kinnaman and Creed-Miles that in the violence they evoke a strong sense of family warmth. These scenes offer a convincing slow combustion while their little world and their relationship are established.

Unfortunately for Erik, Hanna's adolescence brings a curiosity that soon shatters their world, drawing the attention of shadow government agents ruled by Marissa Wiegler (Mireille Enos, taking over the role played by Cate Blanchett in the movie). You may remember the collaboration between Kinnaman and Enos in the American version of The Killing, but this time, they face each other. They do not share any scene from the pilot, but it still gives us a pretty strong sense of their rivalry.

Here we come across a familiar plot-thriller territory, with allusions to a clandestine operation and a convergence of soldiers towards the forest hideout. Hanna's skills are put to the test and she is confronted for the first time in the outside world at the end of the episode – a fascinating prospect.

In this opening episode, Hanna's television version tries to strike a balance between the drama of the majority and the action thriller, but only the first one really feels that they succeed. The action itself is well filmed and choreographed, but the elements of the thriller feel a little "spent there".

However, the European venues presented here – the first two episodes were shot in Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Morocco, Spain and the United Kingdom – are spectacular. And Hanna's journey around the world is intriguing. Seeing our tough little girl negotiating these many and varied places could be worth extending the standalone movie to the epic television series.