Hancock Is the Sort of Superhero People Wish Would Just Stay Home...
Written: Jul 02 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Smith and Bateman, fun premise, interesting twists
Cons: violence, profanity, destruction
The Bottom Line: Hancock has a lot to learn about being a superhero...
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| bilbopooh's Full Review: Hancock |
Nothing says summer blockbuster like an adrenaline-packed superhero flick. Over the past few years, Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk are only some of the supercharged heroes who have graced the screen. Some are a little better at their jobs than others; none can match the ineptness of Hancock, the titular character in Peter Berg's film that is part comedy, part drama and all action.
I first heard of Hancock about a month and a half ago when I went to see Prince Caspian. The previews drew me in immediately, revealing a film whose premise was full of potential, with the star power of Will Smith attached. What if you had a guy with unusual abilities who genuinely wanted to help rid the city of crime but went about it in a way that did more harm than good? We're not even talking sheer clumsiness here. Hancock (Smith) is belligerent, seeming to go out of his way to aggravate as many people as possible.
As the film opens, Hancock is a hard-drinking, foul-tempered, disheveled mess of a man whose attempts at heroism tend to result in millions of dollars in damages to the city of Los Angeles. especially when a certain seven-letter word beginning with the letter "a" escapes the lips of a cocky criminal or even just an antagonistic passerby. If ever a guy needed to work on his image, it was him. Luckily, he happens to rescue Ray Emrey (Jason Bateman), who spends his days trying to talk heads of major corporations into making a difference for the world. In Hancock, Ray sees an opportunity, not only to repay Hancock's life-saving maneuvers but also to inspire him to be a better person, someone around whom the whole city can rally.
The trailers for this movie led me to believe that it was primarily a comedy. Certainly there are funny moments, particularly in the first half of the movie, but the film is as much about self-awareness and improving the world as it is about laughing at a superhero who causes more disasters than he stops. Everything hinges on the performance of Smith, who makes his character utterly unappealing to begin with, gradually becoming more likable as he discovers what it is like to have someone care about him.
Bateman and Smith play wonderfully off each other, especially in the beginning when Hancock is so surly, standing in such stark contrast to Ray's chipper outlook on life. Charlize Theron puts in a solid performance as Ray's wife Mary, who seems to think Ray has lost his mind when he takes Hancock on as a rehabilitation project. Fans of Friday Night Lights will recognize both Jae Head, who plays Ray's bubbly young son Aaron, and Brad Leland as a skeptical executive to whom Ray pitches a radical idea.
Rampant destruction is always to be expected in superhero films; the difference here is that the good guy is doing most of the damage himself. In any case, expect to see lots of stuff getting smashed to smithereens, sometimes accompanied by bodily injury. When the action isn't cranked up, this is actually a fairly quiet movie, with stretches of wordless introspection on the part of Hancock. When he does speak, every word is clearly enunciated. Half of things he says involve some sort of profanity, especially during the first half of the movie; it switches gears about halfway through, becoming both more serious and less profane. Though I might have preferred a little more humor in the second half, it still had some laughs, and the shift in tone didn't throw me too much.
With all the swearing and violence, not to mention inebriation, the PG-13 is well-earned, and I don't know that I would recommend the movie for kids much younger than that. But for teens and adults, Hancock is a different kind of superhero movie that shows yet again what a talent Hollywood has in Will Smith.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
bilbopooh
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Member: Erin McCarty
Location: Erie, PA
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