Hancock Review
by Steve Rhodes (steve DOT rhodes AT internetreviews DOT com)July 12th, 2008
HANCOCK
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2008 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
HANCOCK is a disappointing mishmash. Featuring the very bankable star Will Smith, the movie will undoubtedly make a mint at the box office during this long Independence Day weekend, but it shouldn't, since it is only sporadically entertaining. Even my college-age son, who is one of Smith's number one fans, found HANCOCK to be a big letdown.
While I don't deny Smith's talents and eminent likeability, this is the third of his films in a row, the last two being I AM LEGEND and THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, which I didn't like. Smith has fallen into the trap of playing the same character in every picture, with the variations between them being increasingly small. It seems that he always plays himself and with fewer and fewer nuances each time. Still, I would never bet against his ability to rake in the ticket dollars. His movies are as close to presold packages as anything Hollywood produces.
On the other hand, is the world really ready for a superhero who is a slacker, an alcoholic bum and a foul-mouthed guy who gropes the women in his path? Perhaps, and, in the case of Will Smith's Hancock, quite probably. But, for my taste, I never warmed up to Smith's character, so I didn't care much when his predictable redemption came.
What I especially did not care for were the story's many subplots, the worst of which was a do-gooder marketing scheme that had companies giving away their products in return for a heart-shaped label. With this label on their other offerings, the companies could market themselves as officially holier than their competition. This storyline had absolutely nothing to do with HANCOCK.
Smith's Hancock is a superhero who likes to fly drunk. With a whiskey bottle in one hand, he uses the other one to scoop up the bad guys. Since Hancock's rescue missions usually cause significant amounts of collateral damage, he has become persona non grata in Los Angles, even though he keeps saving the citizens. The police force is shown to be particularly incompetent when the thugs turn to the use of automatic weapons. But, with Hancock around to save the day, the police's inability to protect and defend is effectively not much of a problem.
With the community hating him, Hancock turns to Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), a P.R. man, in order to improve the his superhero reputation. Ray suggests that Hancock allow himself to be put in jail for his misdeeds. Once imprisoned, his absence will quickly make the public grow fond, since the bad guys will run rampant in the city.
As soon as you see that Academy Award winner Charlize Theron has what would appear to be the very small part of Mary, Ray's wife, a suburban housewife and mother, you can easily guess that there is another subplot brewing.
What the movie doesn't have is a villain. Sure, there are a few criminals who might nominally be called villains, but they are such ineffective and lame villains that they hardly count.
There is also a love story, but it is so inconsequential that it is hardly even worth discussing.
The movie is in love with one thing -- its use of the shaky-cam. Maybe they are trying to get the audience seasick, since they aren't able to successfully induce any other feelings about the film. Sure, there are a few laughs and a few smiles, so the movie does work occasionally, but, other than some motion sickness, the main thing it produces is a mild case of boredom.
HANCOCK runs 1:35. It is rated PG-13 for "some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and language" and would be acceptable for teenagers. While watching it, I guessed incorrectly, based on the language, that I was watching an R-rated film. I think I agree with the MPAA that PG-13 is the correct rating for the movie, but it's close.
My son Jeffrey, age 19, giving it **, said, "What an utter disappointment!" He found the jokes repetitive and complained that the movie could never decide what to be: a comedy, a drama, an action movie, a mythological film or a romance. Overall, he said it that was not horrible but that not much happened. He noted that, if you've seen the trailers, you've already seen all of the good parts. Jeffrey's girlfriend Yasmin, almost 19, gave it ** 1/2, saying that she did like the beginning of the film, which she found funny, but she did like not the rest of it. She found the last half of the film especially bland. And, although she normally likes romances, she thought this love story was too lame. She and Jeffrey both hated the heart-shaped label subplot.
The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In the Silicon Valley, it is showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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