KINGSIZE MOVIE REVIEW: HANCOCK

Will Smith is known as “Mr. 4^th of July Weekend.” It seems like every year; Will is starring in a big summer blockbuster opening up the weekend of the 4^th. The reality is that “Hancock”, his latest, is only the fourth Will Smith film to open during Independence Day weekend. It’s also the first one since Men in Black II opened on July 3^rd, 2002! This return to favorable scheduling should no doubt deliver the ticket sales but does it deliver any quality?

 

Smith is Hancock, a drunken, surly, bum of a super hero living in Los Angeles. In helping the city fight crime he often does way more harm then good. While he always catches the crooks and saves lives he also causes millions of dollars in property damage by carelessly flying through, landing on, or crushing signs, buildings, bridges, cars, etc etc.

 

He has caused so much damage that the people of LA flat out hate him. They boo and heckle him after every display of “heroics”. He is also regularly called an unpleasant seven letter name that begins with “A” and ends with “OLE”. He is called this by cops, crooks, kids, and adults. He, however, claims he doesn’t care. That’s where Ray, played by Jason Bateman, comes in. After Hancock saves Ray’s life, the PR professional invites him home for dinner with his wife Mary (Charlize Theron) and son Aaron. The wife is clearly not pleased with their new house guest, though the son immediately idolizes him. Ray wants to help Hancock change his image from that of a hated and underappreciated strongman to that of a real live Super Hero.

 

“Hancock”, as a movie, is completely schizophrenic. It’s almost like 3 mini-movies mashed together. The first 30 minutes is mostly what you’ve seen in the trailers, the bum hero breaking things and dishing out insults to the ungrateful mortals around him. This part was funny and clever, even though most of the best gags were already shown in the trailers. This should have been the majority of the movie. 

 

However, the next half hour turns into some kind of artsy, touchy feely story about why Hancock is the way he is and the bond between husband and wife and how we can all better ourselves and change the world. It comes complete with a big montage juxtaposing Hancock’s sullen introspection with Ray and Mary’s smiling love all played out over a soft piano melody. It didn’t match what had preceded it at all. 

 

Then we change gears once again for the final half hour. The movie now turns into a raw and rather surprisingly violent action movie, once again not really matching anything that had happened before. It’s almost as if 3 different directors each took a crack at their vision of what this movie should be about. That is not the case though, one guy, Peter Berg directed the whole thing. One consistency throughout though, is one that probably should have been left out. Berg seems to be quite fond of the extreme, emotional, slow-moving close-up. This, once again, seemed out of place for this type of movie, or at least, in the first and last 3rds of this movie. 

 

“Hancock” could have been great, had they stuck with the superhero as bum idea and played that out for the whole movie. It has a very talented cast but ultimately it’s a letdown. SKIP IT.