"Hancock" Review

If a superhero is a bitter, alcoholic, asshole, is he still super or heroic? Technically he can still do his job - fighting crime, saving people - but if he's rude while doing it and those saved can smell whiskey on his breath, then I would say that he's not living up to his full potential. You can't be a dick and apathetic towards people and then expect those around you to kiss the ground you walk on as you whisk cars off train tracks and away from oncoming freight engines. Hancock is that superhero. Not the good Batman kind with an outfit and hiding in secrecy with a British butler. He's the other kind; the antithesis to the regular superhero (though really, they are never 'regular'). He is an apathetic, douchebag who thinks that his god given talent is more of a chore and does his job bregudgingly. First lesson; you can be an ass while being a superhero but literally everyone you save will hate you.

Will Smith, in his yearly July 4th box office powerhouse, is the titular Hancock. He is everything you wouldn't want in a superhero and more(!!) He drinks. He is awful. And if you dare call him an asshole to his face (a spade is a spade) then he will cut your arm or do his signature "Your head is going up his ass" and he means it. Unlike other superheroes who are known for being kind and fighting bad guys with tentacles and equal power, Hancock fights more common crime -think bank robberies -throughout Los Angeles. He swoops down to help an advertising exec who's BMW is trapped on the traintracks. But when he saves the advertising executive, Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), it starts a chain of events with Mary Embrey (Charlize Theron), Ray's wife at the center that that ultimately leads to one awful ending where you will sit and wonder whether or not you should laugh or cry or maybe demand that the theater give you free candy. 

It's the ending that kills the movie. It's a film that rolls along with a good amount of laughter including Will Smith doing something that he isn't normally known for - dropping the 'f' bomb - and then suddenly it stops being funny. For the first 45 minutes, my problem was that there was no backstory. We know why other superheroes have superhuman strength and can fly or change the weather when pissed but there was no reason for why Hancock is so curmudgeonly and cruel. Upon finding out his story the film makes a downward turn towards not so funny. It turns silly and a serious moment at the end when people should have their eyes brimming with tears is met with silence. It was as if the fun was sucked out of the movie just to make some sort of overly dramatic and preposterous point about how we humans inherently need to be with another person. I shake my head just thinking about it.

I brought my brother with me to see this - I never bring anyone - and he was good to have on hand to make great points like don't bring your six year old to this film expecting a light hearted romp with some ass kicking and explosions (case in point: Hancock's flying music is Move Bitch by Ludacris but if you want your kid humming that song with a cape on his back then go right on ahead). He also wanted me to stress the point that the ending sucked and that up until yesterday, all previews for Hancock solely showed Will Smith and Jason Bateman. Last night, roughly three hours after the very first showing, audiences are clued into the fact that Charlize Theron might have a much bigger roll than just simple support. That said, it's still Will Smith as a superhero on July 4th weekend. And even if the ending makes you say "What the f*ck" loudly, it's still WILL SMITH. And at one point, Will Smith's bare ass. There is at least some entertainment value there.

Comments

[Liana]

I'm really glad I read this! I still want to see the movie but now I won't be quite so screechy from unexpected frustration after I see it. Thanks for a good and honest review!

P.S. I do love me some Will Smith- part of the reason I will still see it :)

[Irma]

I saw it this past weekend. The last 20 minutes still drive me batty, like the writers said, "Crap, we have 15 minutes to wrap this up, so cram in entirely new plot lines that we have not -- and will not -- explain fully, just END it!"... but at the same time, I really liked it.

It is what it is,just a summer movie that you choose to see in its air-conditioned glory to avoid the heat back at your house. And at that level, it works. I don't think anyone believes Oscar is coming to call.

But isn't that what summer movies are about?