7.5 out of 10
When Hollywood tries to make their own superhero movies, they tend to fail. Whether it’s something silly like Meteor Man or amazing like Unbreakable, comic hero style movies that don’t have a comic to fall back on tend to underperform.
So when Sony Pictures decides to bring out Hancock in what has critically and domestically been *the* greatest summer for superhero films, you’ve gotta’ wonder what they’re thinking.
There are no long-time readers of Hancock like their are for Hulk, Iron Man, Batman or even Hellboy. So no naturally built-in audience, save the one that loves to go see Will Smith movies. Frankly, I’m on that list. I love Will Smith. Six Degrees of Seperation showed us all that he had serious acting chops, I’ve been a supporter. So I can forgive things like Wild Wild West or Men in Black II.
If Hancock is to succeed in the best superhero movie summer ever, it damn well better deliver something unforseen. The good news is…it does. Hancock, above all other things, is interesting.
What is Hancock About?
The first time we see Hancock in the film, he’s drunk off his ass. Sleeping on a park-bench, empty bottle of whisky on the hard concrete, he’s roused by a young boy. What’s the young boy want? He wants Hancock to get off his ass and go be a superhero.
To his credit, Hancock does just that.
In what is probably the toughest sell in this entire film, audiences are asked to not only see Will Smith as a jerk, but also to like him along the way. Does he save people? Sure. Does he have any regard whatsoever for property or moral responsibilities? Absolutely not.
In one day alone, Hancock is responsible for causing of $9 million in damage to downtown LA. So you can imagine how the people feel about him. For Hancock, the feeling is mutual. He can save the people, but he doesn’t have to like them. At some point, you think, “Well, they should just be glad he’s chosen to be a hero rather than a criminal!” but that’s a thought that would never cross Hancock’s mind. Because deep down, no matter what, he likes saving people. It’s his duty.
He’s just not very good at human interaction. Enter Jason Bateman. Bateman’s job is to give us an in to Hancock, to show us what is truly great about the character, and to assist on his struggles to change the city’s perception of him.
Most of this you should have gotten from the trailer. But what you don’t necessarily get is how amazing Will Smith is when it comes to playing the disconnected, unsatisfied and tormented Hancock.
Does Hancock work?
Smith’s big eyes, usually smiling or pleading in most roles, turn cold and harsh in this film. He stops a train and proceeds to conduct the rabble-rousing by local citizens as if it were some orchestrated movement he’s heard a million times before. He dares people to push his buttons, and when they do, he pounces. Hard, quick, and without a single bit of reservation.
And that’s when you realize that casting Will Smith was the best thing that could have happened for this film.
When you’ve got a character, who for all intents and purposes, is supposed to be completely unlikable, how can audiences identify with him? Simple - you cast Will Smith, and there’s a natural charm that grabs the audience. He’s got the hero gravity, that special draw toward him where even throwing a young boy far up into the stratosphere (to catch him a few minutes later) will make you laugh.
Throughout this entire film, my smile was ear to ear. I was having a blast, first with the Hancock who was a jerk, then with the Hancock who’s trying to be the hero everyone else wants him to be. And then especially through the subtext and plot reveals that come along, that you never, ever expect or see coming. Not in a million years.
If you think you can figure out this movie, you can’t. You won’t. You can get hints, you can maybe pick up on this here or that there, but when the final revelations are given to audiences, you’ll be as surprised as anyone else.
For that, I’ve gotta’ thank writers Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan, who have created an entire mythos, backstory, and history for this character that you’ll never figure out before hand, and do a great job of revealing it without too much useless exposition. Much of it comes through in subtext or in action, not from soliloquy’s standing atop a huge building as some mindless villain promises Hancock that he’ll “rue the day” or some such crap.
Hancock brings a new and interesting spin to superhero films. While not 100% original by any means, to see this level of sophistication and depth in a superhero backstory that doesn’t have 40+ years of comic history and writers to draw from is exciting.
What’s Wrong with Hancock?
The music, time and again, is completely off the mark.
Our first introduction to Jason Bateman’s character had my eyebrows cocked as I tried to decipher the purpose. From that point on, the music is entirely hit and miss. When Hancock’s being a badass superhero? It’s on. When the Sanford and Son theme song suddenly pops up? It doesn’t. All in all, the score is just too present, too heavy handed and too out of sync with what we’re actually feeling, versus what the composer is trying to make us feel.
Hancock feels edited. Extremely. While there’s nothing specifically I can point out to say, “This would be better if it were longer…” or “I wish I had more of that,” I can say that during the film I felt we were sometimes cutting too soon or things were being left out. Most of it has to do with pacing. A montage of Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron’s character’s smiling and snuggling in bed comes out of nowhere, but does fit who those characters are. It just needed some ramp up - and you can say that a lot of times about Hancock.
It never drags. Never gets slow. Never gets boring, but sometimes, you wish it would take a breath and let you see these character’s you’re liking so much.
Sometimes, though, Director Peter Berg struggles with tone. Switching from this story to that story, the attitude of the entire film can switch a little too far from what we’ve experienced before, and it can be jarring. Part of this could be a music thing, as the music’s often trying to cram an emotion you don’t want down your throat, but the tone problems have to be addressed. They are distracting here and there.
Best things about Hancock?
One of my favorite things about this film is that it isn’t underwritten. Never, at any time, do I feel the writer’s didn’t take into account a characters true feelings, motivations or life-story.
Everything is a tapestry in this film and there’s so much more beneath the surface of the people we see on screen. Which leads to some of the problems with the editing, where you know there’s more going on, but you just aren’t given that glimpse into it.
Charlize Theron is fantastic. From the first moment she’s on the screen, you get something from her and you wonder what the payoff’s going to be. Then, when it finally happens, it’s such a surprise and different from what you’d built in your head, you’ll be reflecting back on the not-so-subtle clues all throughout the film.
Bateman is wonderful, and it’s nice to see him play this role. If there’s one good thing about Arrested Development, it’s that it brought Jason Bateman back into the consciousness of filmmakers, so we can see his interesting interpretations on characters and share in the joy he brings to the role. There’s an innate goodness to his character that comes through in everything he does, and Bateman nails it.
Will Smith just brings it. In scene after scene, he does what you want him to do, so much so that above all actors in the film, he transcends being Will Smith and instead becomes Hancock.
Imagine how much damn talent it takes to do that? To be one of the biggest stars in the world, and to still be so good that you can get audiences to believe you when you’re playing a whisky-slurping ragamuffin superhero? Kudos to Smith.
Finally, the directing. Peter Berg’s an interesting guy, and he’s made a really interesting movie. Action scenes are handled perfectly. The character interactions work well, and the world is alive. Not as deep or as big as say the New York of Spider-Man, but when it comes to the circles surrounding our main characters, they’re fleshed out and we can imagine them really existing.
Berg takes the characters where they need to go, and brings from them the performances needed to get so much deep, powerful subtext off the paper and into the hearts of audiences. I can’t applaud him enough for that.
Oh, and the CG is actually really good. Occassionally it looks bad, but most of the time, I didn’t even think about it - it was just as real as anything else in the movie, which is exactly what you want.
Closing Thoughts…
Hancock isn’t a perfect film by any means. It tries to find its footing, stumbles a bit, and eventually stands on top of that building, hands in a fist, placed firmly on its hips, chest puffed out and ready to take on the world.
Hancock makes me want more. A sequel? Maybe, I’m not sure. But there are probably a few prequels in this badboy that could really rock us all and be even more interesting than this film itself. All in all, I can’t figure out any reason for you to not go see Hancock, unless you just hate having fun at the movie theatre.
