Film review: Will Smith's superstar power isn't enough to rescue 'Hancock'
As a surly and homeless antihero of a superhero known as Hancock, Will Smith flies through the air with a drunkard's wobble, like a helicopter with a bent rotor.
When Hancock saves the life of PR exec Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman, center right), Ray takes Hancock home to meet the family -- wife Mary (Charlize Theron) and son Aaron (Jae Head).
Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and language
Length: 92 minutes
Released: July 2, 2008 NationwideScore: 2.0
Cast: Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman, Adam Del Rio, Jameson Dixon Jr.
Director: Peter BergProducer: Louis D'Esposito
Writer: Vince Gilligan, Vincent Ngo
Genre: Drama, Action/Adventure
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Photos by Frank Masi/Columbia Pictures
Will Smith stars as Hancock, a misunderstood superhero whose well-intentioned heroics usually leave damage in their wake
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Smith's earnest movie, "Hancock," is similarly out of whack. It's a peculiar misfire, compromised by low comedy, a pandering Soundtrack for Dummies (for about the 8 millionth time, we hear Ludacris commanding "move, get out the way" during a chase scene) and the understandable timidity of a studio unwilling to transform the most reliably bankable star in movies into a morally bankrupt character. (Apparently, the movie's 90-minute running time is due in part to the cuts required to reduce its original "R" rating to a more Will Smith-appropriate "PG-13.")
An ambitious and clever attempt to deal with the superhero concept in the "realistic" manner of M. Night Shyamalan's bizarre "Unbreakable," "Hancock" seems to have been conceived (by veteran "X Files" scribe Vince Gilligan and collaborating writer Vincent Ngo) as a riposte to the current fashion for movies about larger-than-life Marvel and DC characters. Batman may be a borderline nutcase and Spider-Man an insecure reformed nerd, but they
remain enviable fantasy-identification figures. In contrast, Hancock is -- in a word used by almost everybody he encounters -- an "a--hole" whose erratic superheroics cause more damage than they prevent. He's invulnerable, he can fly, and he doesn't age, but he also has no memory of how he got that way. In his own mind as well as in the memory of Los Angeles, he just appeared one day. (Don't many people feel that way about the homeless?)
Dressed in the wool cap and ratty clothes of a street person, Hancock is reluctant to exercise his powers. In contrast, public relations marketer Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) is eager to "save the world" with a campaign to encourage greater corporate contributions to charity. When Hancock clumsily saves Ray from being smashed by a train, the upbeat Ray convinces the unpopular superbeing to allow him to remake his image. "I'm gonna teach you how to interface with people," Ray says. However, Ray's wife (Charlize Theron) disapproves of this project; the sidelong glances she gives Hancock suggest she's harboring ideas of her own.
When Ray meets Hancock, the movie replaces its great premise -- what if Superman were a crude, selfish slob? -- with an idiot plot: a narcissistic celebrity makeover metaphor that might have had some resonance if Hancock were played by Tom Cruise rather than the beloved Smith. The fact that Hancock is unappreciated and misunderstood despite his great fame and power may resonate with those who attended the "Hancock" red carpet premiere in Hollywood, but it's a non-issue for moviegoers, who will be thankful when a surprise twist is introduced about halfway through the story that all but jettisons Ray's relevance.
Or is "Hancock" about something else? The character's complexion isn't directly commented upon, but is Hancock -- a representative of an ancient race, as it turns out -- supposed to remind us of the way majority America treats black men in particular, with a humiliating mistrust that's never far behind the admiration expressed for those who "earn" approval through their athletic ability, musical skills and other talents?
If only "Hancock" could have jettisoned its director. Peter Berg ("The Kingdom," "The Rundown") shoots "Hancock" in that trendy and shaky style that is supposed to impose a documentary-like realism on the material; sudden zooms and other readjustments in focus occur frequently, as if the camera operator were being taken by surprise by the action in front of him. One wonders why Berg applies this supposed caught-on-the-fly technique to the scenes shot in Ray's board room, where all the actors are seated and stationary. On the other hand, any camera trick that would have obscured the sight gag involving one prison inmate's head and another prison inmate's butt would have been welcome.
-- John Beifuss, 529-2394
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