Review: Hancock (2008)

[Steve Rhodes]

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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