HANCOCK
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2008 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
HANCOCK is a disappointing mishmash. Featuring the very bankable star
Will
Smith, the movie will undoubtedly make a mint at the box office during
this
long Independence Day weekend, but it shouldn't, since it is only
s****adically entertaining. Even my college-age son, who is one of Smith's
number one fans, found HANCOCK to be a big letdown.
While I don't deny Smith's talents and eminent likeability, this is the
third of his films in a row, the last two being I AM LEGEND and THE
PURSUIT
OF HAPPYNESS, which I didn't like. Smith has fallen into the trap of
playing the same character in every picture, with the variations between
them being increasingly small. It seems that he always plays himself and
with fewer and fewer nuances each time. Still, I would never bet against
his ability to rake in the ticket dollars. His movies are as close to
presold packages as anything Hollywood produces.
On the other hand, is the world really ready for a superhero who is a
slacker, an alcoholic bum and a foul-mouthed guy who gropes the women in
his
path? Perhaps, and, in the case of Will Smith's Hancock, quite probably.
But, for my taste, I never warmed up to Smith's character, so I didn't
care
much when his predictable redemption came.
What I especially did not care for were the story's many subplots, the
worst
of which was a do-gooder marketing scheme that had companies giving away
their products in return for a heart-shaped label. With this label on
their
other offerings, the companies could market themselves as officially
holier
than their competition. This storyline had absolutely nothing to do with
HANCOCK.
Smith's Hancock is a superhero who likes to fly drunk. With a whiskey
bottle in one hand, he uses the other one to scoop up the bad guys. Since
Hancock's rescue missions usually cause significant amounts of collateral
damage, he has become persona non grata in Los Angles, even though he
keeps
saving the citizens. The police force is shown to be particularly
incompetent when the thugs turn to the use of automatic weapons. But,
with
Hancock around to save the day, the police's inability to protect and
defend
is effectively not much of a problem.
With the community hating him, Hancock turns to Ray Embrey (Jason
Bateman),
a P.R. man, in order to improve the his superhero reputation. Ray
suggests
that Hancock allow himself to be put in jail for his misdeeds. Once
imprisoned, his absence will quickly make the public grow fond, since the
bad guys will run rampant in the city.
As soon as you see that Academy Award winner Charlize Theron has what
would
appear to be the very small part of Mary, Ray's wife, a suburban housewife
and mother, you can easily guess that there is another subplot brewing.
What the movie doesn't have is a villain. Sure, there are a few criminals
who might nominally be called villains, but they are such ineffective and
lame villains that they hardly count.
There is also a love story, but it is so inconsequential that it is hardly
even worth discussing.
The movie is in love with one thing -- its use of the shaky-cam. Maybe
they
are trying to get the audience seasick, since they aren't able to
successfully induce any other feelings about the film. Sure, there are a
few laughs and a few smiles, so the movie does work occasionally, but,
other
than some motion sickness, the main thing it produces is a mild case of
boredom.
HANCOCK runs 1:35. It is rated PG-13 for "some intense sequences of
sci-fi
action and violence, and language" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
While watching it, I guessed incorrectly, based on the language, that I
was
watching an R-rated film. I think I agree with the MPAA that PG-13 is the
correct rating for the movie, but it's close.
My son Jeffrey, age 19, giving it **, said, "What an utter
disappointment!"
He found the jokes repetitive and complained that the movie could never
decide what to be: a comedy, a drama, an action movie, a mythological film
or a romance. Overall, he said it that was not horrible but that not much
happened. He noted that, if you've seen the trailers, you've already seen
all of the good parts. Jeffrey's girlfriend Yasmin, almost 19, gave it **
1/2, saying that she did like the beginning of the film, which she found
funny, but she did like not the rest of it. She found the last half of
the
film especially bland. And, although she normally likes romances, she
thought this love story was too lame. She and Jeffrey both hated the
heart-shaped label subplot.
The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In
the
Silicon Valley, it is showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters
and
the Camera Cinemas.
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