Summary

• Adria Arjona shines in Hit Man, a captivating action project that showcases her talent and range in the genre.
• Hit Man's 96% Rotten Tomatoes score ties with Andor, marking a high point in Arjona's action filmography.
• The movie's success serves as a redemption for Arjona after the critical failure of Morbius, setting the stage for future action roles.

Adria Arjona’s new Netflix action comedy movie, Hit Man, is the exact type of role that she has deserved to be cast in after her hit Star Wars show from 2022. From Dazed and Confused and Boyhood director Richard Linklater, the upcoming Netflix movie Hit Man stars Glen Powell as an undercover police officer posing as a hitman, who uses his disguises to arrest those attempting to hire him. The undercover plan works well until he falls for one of his hitman persona’s would-be clients, a woman named Madison (Adria Arjona) who seeks to order a hit on her husband.

The 2024 movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2023 to impressive reviews from critics, with Hit Man currently holding a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of its debut on Netflix this June. Based on the enthusiastic response to Hit Man’s new trailer, it seems the excitement and acclaim for the movie will only grow once it becomes available for streaming on Netflix. With the film’s plot largely being hinged on the chemistry and versatile performances of co-stars Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, Richard Linklater’s Hit Man gives the latter actor her greatest action vehicle since her role in Disney+’s acclaimed, record-breaking Star Wars series.

Hit Man will be released on Netflix on June 7, 2024.

Hit Man Is An Incredible Action Movie Follow-Up To Andor For Adria Arjona

Hit Man is another acclaimed action project for Arjona

Before Hit Man, Adria Arjona’s greatest action role was in the 2022 Star Wars show Andor, which broke records to become the franchise’s highest-rated live-action show on Rotten Tomatoes. With a 96% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a nomination for Outstanding Drama Series at the 2023 Emmy Awards, Andor was a resounding hit for the Star Wars franchise, much of which is thanks to its incredible leading cast. Starring alongside Diego Luna and Kyle Soller, Adria Arjona got to show off her action drama chops in Andor’s cast as the titular character’s close ally Bix Caleen, a role for which she received substantial praise.

Considering how impressive Arjona’s performance was in Andor, the actress has been in need of another action project with similar quality and acclaim that properly utilizes her talents in the genre. About two years later, the perfect solution arrived in Hit Man, which sees her back in the action genre while also highlighting her skills in the romantic drama sector of movies. The movie premiered to the same outstanding Rotten Tomatoes score held by Andor, with many of Hit Man’s reviews praising Arjona and Powell’s chemistry, comedic timing, and action sequences.

Netflix's Hit Man Is Tied With Andor For Adria Arjona's Highest Rotten Tomatoes Score

Hit Man & Andor both hold 96% scores from critics

Ahead of the movie’s Netflix release, Hit Man is tied with Andor at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning both share the title of Adria Arjona’s highest-rated project on the review aggregator site. Close behind Andor and Hit Man is Arjona’s 2022 HBO miniseries Irma Vep, which holds a 95% score from critics. The remainder of Arjona’s scores on Rotten Tomatoes don’t give Andor and Hit Man much competition thus far, with the majority of her movies, sadly, having “rotten” scores below 60% on the site.

Outside of Hit Man, only one other action movie starring Adria Arjona has a positive score on Rotten Tomatoes, and it doesn’t come close to the latest Richard Linklater-directed movie success. Her next-highest-rated action movie is the 2019 film Triple Frontier, which has a 70% score from critics but only a 58% score from audiences. Highlighting how relieving the resounding critical acclaim of Hit Man is for Arjona’s action resume, her four other action movies fared much worse review-wise, as Morbius stands at 15%, Netflix's Sweet Girl is at 23%, the Ryan Reynolds-starring 6 Underground holds 36%, and Pacific Rim Uprising has a 42% score.

Consequently, Hit Man is a great jump up in terms of her film roles in the genre, and makes the case for Arjona to receive more action roles in big-budget franchises on the big screen. With Hit Man divisively opting for a streaming release on Netflix over a theatrical window, the spectacle of the fight scenes and thrills of the conflict between Arjona and Powell’s characters won’t be enjoyed in a bigger theatrical presentation. Still, the acclaim of Hit Man should warrant similar opportunities for Arjona in the future, with her leading man co-star Glen Powell already tapped in for upcoming action movies like The Running Man remake and Twisters.

The acclaim of Hit Man should warrant similar opportunities for Arjona in the future

Hit Man Already Redeems Adria Arjona's Last Big Action Movie

Arjona makes a big jump from 15% to 96% scores in action movies

While Adria Arjona finished 2022 on a huge win with Andor’s success, she was in another action project that year at the opposite end of the critical scale. A few months before Andor hit Disney+, Arjona starred in the critically panned box office bomb Morbius, a superhero film in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. The 2022 movie starring Jared Leto only made $167.5 million at the box office against an estimated budget of $75 million (via Box Office Mojo), with Morbius also receiving mostly negative reviews, earning a disappointing 15% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Considering Morbius was Arjona’s last major action movie, Hit Man is a huge redemption for the actress within this genre for her movies. The poor reception of the 2022 movie suggests that Morbius 2 won’t ever happen, but the pre-release success of Hit Man could give Arjona a better-quality action franchise replacement if the Linklater movie sets up a sequel. While Arjona already has a potentially long-running franchise role in Star Wars through Andor season 2 and beyond, Hit Man can grant the actress a big-screen franchise more worthy of her talents than Morbius’ misfire.

Hit Man's Trailer Teases An Exciting Change For Adria Arjona's Action Roles After Andor

Arjona gets to show more range within the action genre

Furthermore, Hit Man proves all the more exciting because of the new opportunity that it gives Adria Arjona in regard to showcasing her acting range. While she played more heroic characters in her action films and shows, Richard Linklater's Hit Man flips this conception of her roles on its head and has her playing a character whose intentions are put in question as the film’s core conflict. The trailer suggests that Arjona’s character may actually be responsible for going through with ordering the hit on her husband, hinting she could turn out to be the main villain of Hit Man’s movie.

Hit Man proves all the more exciting because of the new opportunity that it gives Adria Arjona in regard to showcasing her acting range.

From Bix Caleen to Madison Masters, Andor and Hit Man are certainly providing compelling vehicles for Adria Arjona’s versatile skill set in the action genre. If she does prove to be the villain in Hit Man, then it’s likely that her subsequent action roles will see her take on additional morally gray characters. After Hit Man, Arjona is scheduled to star in Zoë Kravitz’s upcoming thriller movie Blink Twice, which may extend her action character range even further.

Sources: Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Mojo