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Dancing_P [ 4.5 ]
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I can't really say I approve of the bait-and-switch technique the writers use here. While some audiences seem to think it brilliant that Hancock turns into something entirely different halfway through, it stikes me more as laziness than an actual clever development. Films like From Dusk Til Dawn work along this model because they fuck with your expectations; Hancock doesn't work because it supposes it knows what your expectations are while getting it horribly wrong.
The titular Hancock (Will Smith) is a drunken, boorish superhero who somehow feels obliged to help others even when that means destroying millions of dollars of property. After he saves a PR rep having a bad day (Jason Bateman), he agrees to go through an image overhaul. Here is where it gets dicey, so spoiler alert: it turns out Hancock is an immortal gob, the PR rep's wife (Charlize Theron) is his soulmate and when they're close to each other, they act like mutual kryptonite.
Perhaps this speaks to my baser instincts but I'd much rather see Will Smith bumming around and breaking shit than see him in the midst of an overblown Greek tragedy that awkwardly explains itself through pages of expository dialogue (althoug shit does break). The bait-and-switch doesn't work because it necessitates a ton of background exposition that can really only be explained through that old chestnut, amnesia. It's really two different movies' worth of writing jammed into one script; perhaps the only overwritten shit-blows-up movie in recent memory.
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suminjoo [ 6.0 ]
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A different kind of superhero movie. It actually had a better, non-typical story than other "man" movies. I wish I didn't see the previews as it ruined some of the story lines. The first 15 minutes as well as the ending was kinda sad for me, so it didn't get a good rating. Overall, it was a fine fun movie.
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babyduck [ 8.0 ]
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Well, it made me laugh endlessly, which gives it high style points.
The ultimate plot arc was the disappointing factor in this film and given it's high summer movie blockbuster prominence I guess I should have expected an uneven treatment of the material despite it's great potential. I smell writing by committee that can only result in a series of small compromises in the direction the story took.
Ah well still worth the obvious hilarious moments (mostly spoiled in previews) that can ensue given the material about a super-hero needing some Prozac.
Heroes are but human as well, otherwise they are no fun.
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DokBrowne [ 5.5 ]
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I always hope for the best from a Will Smith movie, but they so often turn out mediocre. Problem is he's too big a star that the projects he's involved in are inevitably tampered with by billions of sources in order to assure maximum demographic exposure or whatever else studio execs think they're doing to increase box office. They end up homogenized in the end. This is a weird film by nature - not only is the main character supposed to be loathsome in a way, but the guy they ultimately hired to direct it (Peter Berg) has an off-kilter, vaguely unpleasant style (I guess the studio only saw "The Rundown" and "The Kingdom", not "Very Bad Things") that doesn't quite match the glossy, crowd-pleasing demands of a typical summer blockbuster. As a result, the movie seems unfocused and almost more suited to an indie production than a big season tentpole. Not that it's edgy by any means - any notion of it grinding against cliches with its backwards premise are wiped away about 20 minutes in when Smith is all but reformed and the central gimmick (Superman is an asshole) slowly fades away.
Nothing wrong with genre blending; arguably the best, most memorable films are those that don't adhere to one specific classification. Good for "Hancock" for not being merely an action-comedy, but it doesn't really satisfy in any of its goals, unfortunately. The action and effects are minimal (there's not even a real villain, nor by proxy a big climax), the comedy toned-down (for an asshole, Hancock isn't all that bad. The script was obviously more concerned with his heroic origins and redemption than confronting this potentially intriguing idea of a douche bag hero. Even the similarly mixed-bag 1992 Dustin Hoffman "Hero" carried this premise further), and the drama too bombastic (the impressive yet raging musical score during all the serious scenes didn't help any).
And that's not even addressing the borderline atrocious second half of the movie, which suffers from both a freefall in inspiration (with the main conflict solved, the screenplay starts inventing crazy story bits every few minutes to sustain itself for a full length) and a forehead-slappingly stupid "twist" involving one character that's dreadfully obvious from the very beginning and makes no sense. It's a lame coincidence, an annoyingly convenient way to wrap character development together, an ill-defined concept in and of itself (wait, so how exactly did it all begin? What are the rules here?), and screws with the story's established universe too much to eventually try going back to normal like it does.
The bottom line, though, is that the movie is reasonably entertaining, if only for the characters themselves and its overall digestible breeziness (even despite the melodrama). The jokes play it way too safe (even the supposedly nasty ones), but Smith is reliably charismatic (although, characteristic of his recent string of roles, here the serious side of his performance proves far more effective than the comic) and Jason Bateman evolves into the heart of the story by the end, to the extent that I think the movie could've been a lot better had it shifted its focus more directly to him than Hancock. There's definitely a good movie underneath the rubble of cookie-cutter compromises, strained, illogical plot developments, and atonal mishmashing, but it probably involves leading up to Bateman becoming the real hero (something that's toyed with but he's still merely shoehorned into the finale), re-thinking Hancock's silly superhero details, and either using the jerk-protagonist motif all the way or not at all.
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jeff_v [ 6.0 ]
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Give this movie a different director and I think you might have a franchise. Will Smith and Charlize Theron are good, but can't quite transcend the noisy and obtrusive style that interferes with the emotional currents. If the movie were a little funnier, or a little more serious, it could have been a success, but it got trapped in no-man's land.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.2 |
| No. Ratings | : 9 | |
| No. Reviews | : 5 | |
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