Hancock

Review By: Jon Allen
JonAllen@TheCinemaSource.com

Movie Grade: C
DVD Features: B
Overall Grade: C+

Who is Hancock? Is he a fun, albeit troubled superhero with inhuman strength and the desire to kick back and get drunk? Is he both? There has to be a back-story here, and somewhat unfortunately, there is.

A summer blockbuster of 2008, Hancock sold the public on its premise, and it is one with some potential: A drunk, misanthrope superhero causes millions in damages in his native Los Angeles; the public railing against him as he seems massively indifferent to the depreciation of the glamorous city.

This interplay with the public, combined with Hancock’s ineffectual and cynical humor could have made for solid summer filler, but instead, Hancock becomes mostly an utter mess. It’s not the hyper digitized CGI effects either – though watching him fly around the City of Angels is like watching the cursor on your computer screen go haywire after your mouse malfunctions.

What hampers this film is a somewhat intelligent superhero comedy ditches its social contract and becomes a serious and lopsided drama and, not playing to its initial strengths, Hancock loses focus and becomes two different movies. The comedic elements, after it’s all over, just seem lazy and uninspired.

We are introduced to Hancock (the unflappable Will Smith) in a requisite crime prevention scene that sends L.A. into a yet another media frenzy: enter Jason Bateman’s Ray Embrey, a “down-on-his-luck” Public Relations guy that is saved by Hancock in a hilariously unrealistic depiction of CGI madness. Embrey is understandably glad to be alive, and makes it a mission to clean up Hancock and his tarnished image.

The superhero volunteers himself for prison, but exits after the crime-rate skyrockets; he re-enters society as a still cynical but slightly adjusted crime-fighter. He prevents an attempted robbery on behalf of a demented redneck, and suddenly, suddenly, Hancock – the film, and the superhero- are involved in one of the more confusing plot twists in recent cinematic history.

There is a back-story and a plot device that I won’t reveal, but I can intimate to the reader that Hancock loses sight of the comedy and becomes something more altogether demented. Essentially, Berg’s second half aims for dramatic tension and emotional overtones as the story shifts into a melodramatic mess of inclinations.

Peter Berg, Hancock’s director (The Kingdom, Friday Night Lights) could be commended for trying out these unique plot devices if he had better performances from his cast. Smith is well suited for the role of superhero; we’ve seen him here before in other blockbusters, generally to a degree of success. Bateman, on the other hand, while not a washout, seems lost and underdeveloped. He is better suited to the comedic elements that Hancock delivers in its first half, but from there on, his role seems almost superfluous. He is, after all, a public relations executive, and once Hancock’s role in Los Angeles is “restored”, his portrayals just ...