Hancock

First off, Hancock is not nearly as attrocious as everyone has been saying. On the other hand, Hancock, both the movie and the man, have serious PR problems. In the film Will Smith’s John Hancock is a boozing superhero in serious need of a makeover after destroying large swathes of the city during his crime fighting, a plot item care of The Incredibles. Though John Hancock has to go to prison to atone for his crimes, the film Hancock is in much more serious trouble. Hancock came out Fourth of July weekend and it stars Will Smith. All of the promos have hyped it up as a big superhero film about an underachieving hero. But it isn’t. No matter how much the studios push the superhero angle Hancock is a surprisingly poignant love story not a superhero film and that is why audiences have been so disappointed.

For what it is, Hancock is not such a bad film. But it suffers under the weight of its own expectations. Why is this film not a superhero film? The film starts big, big hero activity stopping car chases and trains, flying and lifting heavy objects. But it ends small, as a character study of sorts of three individuals. The heavy back-story never really gels and it leaves the leads seeming less than sympathetic to the audience. Plus there is no real resolution to the character stories. The film simply ends with the characters seemingly at a stalemate.

Will Smith plays Hancock as a parody of the superheroes that litter summer blockbusters and are some of the parts Smith himself has played in the past. Hancock drinks, destroys things, and insults and disses the people around him. He can also fly, lift cars and whales, and seems impervious to bullets though not to the effects of alcohol. Smith seems to have a lot of fun playing on this riff. He certainly puts a lot more into it than he did the major disaster Men in Black II. As a result of his exploits Hancock isn’t terribly popular. And for all of his superhero strength, Hancock is alone, a superman in a world of men. Hancock falls, almost literally, into the life of Ray, a cheery, optimistic PR man who is trying to change the world.

Ray is played well by Jason Bateman who continues his career resurgence with yet another key supporting role. He brings the drunk and disorderly superman home with him to meet his wife and son after Hancock saves him from getting hit by a train. At this point the film stops being about Hancock as a superhero and starts to be about Hancock and his involvement with Ray and his wife Mary played effectively by Charlize Theron. And that is simply too much to think about in a summer blockbuster. The effects are even understated, the most interesting being the train wreck and Hancock’s unfortunate habit of tearing up the sidewalk every time that he lands.

There is no great villain for the superhero to vanquish. Eddie Marsan plays Red a career criminal who is out to get Hancock. But as he is a somewhat creepy but otherwise normal criminal up against an impervious superman with incredible strength who can fly it doesn’t seem like much of a battle royale. Thus the later half of the film is missing the elemental conflict to propel and complete the film. In a summer that has brought us Iron Man and the anticipation of The Dark Night, Hancock’s little story can’t stack up and that is a shame.

The film consists of shaky close up camera work and lots and lots of close ups. Sometimes the camera is so close up that the audience can’t even figure out who is fighting who or which of them is winning. The camera tries to show more drama than the script and the actors are providing. But a close-up, even if it is of Charlize Theron, does not a dramatic moment make.

Hancock is a summer blockbuster in search of its big moment. It is a little film more suited to February than July. Smith, Theron, and Bateman are all game for the action, the comedy, and the drama, but the film spends its time zooming in on them and neglects its story progress. There is little to fear from the villains and more to worry about in interpersonal relations and that makes for a humdrum summer film.