Review: Hancock (2008) ***
Hancock was here
Will Smith plays Hancock, a hard drinking, self-loathing, foul-mouthed creep who just happens to be endowed with invincibility, super strength and the ability to fly. He protects Los Angeles from the criminal element, but he tends to do more damage than good and the citizens find him more of a menace than an asset.
Things aren’t looking too promising for our anti-hero, but when he saves the life of PRÂ expert Jason Bateman, he finally finds an ally who might be able to help him turn his image around whether he likes it or not.
On paper, Peter Berg’s new film Hancock offers a setup that challenges the tired and shallow Marvel template, which so far this summer has churned out Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, two films that have proven commercially successful but creatively void. Unfortunately, Hancock only delivers on a fraction of its promise and ultimately disappoints for being yet another movie that attacks the model only to fall short on its own terms.
That’s not to say there aren’t things to like about the movie. Under Peter Berg’s direction, Will Smith manages to shed a couple of layers of the phoniness that affects so many of his performances. This is an edgier, grittier Will Smith than we’re used to seeing and it’s a refreshing change. Berg also has a flair for realism, eschewing the FX set pieces and lending an awkward humanity to Smith even when he’s performing superhuman feats.
Unfortunately, this tendency towards the gritty and realistic conflicts with the film’s weak special effects. Other superhero films exist in their own reality; a reality that asks for and receives a greater suspension of disbelief. In these films, effects don’t have to be completely realistic to be believable. In Hancock however, the film’s welcome grounding in our own reality only magnifies the less than stellar effects work. To paraphrase the tagline from an earlier, more innocent superhero movie: You will not believe a man can fly.
The good news is that Hancock is stripped of not only the goody-goody superhero attitude, it also skips the boring origin story, the arch-enemy bent on world domination and most of the other superhero tropes in between. All of these things are for the better, but the film doesn’t have much to replace them with. If it had the nerve to go full out with an R rating instead of the more timid PG-13, we could’ve had something biting and funny along the lines of Bad Santa. Instead, it’s just passable. It’s frequently amusing, but only moderately so.
What’s more, Hancock lurches uncomfortably between comedy and drama and action. It’s a difficult tight rope for a film to walk, though it’s not impossible. Success can lead to sublime results, but Berg and Smith aren’t quite able to pull the trick off.
Despite its flaws, Hancock gets a pass for its willingness to subvert the ordinary superhero movie. It has its share of laughs and thrills and it even provides a reasonable twist that I didn’t see coming. It’s a shame then that it was too timid to take the revolution far enough. By pulling its PG-13 rated punches, it manages to prove how weak the ordinary superhero movie has become, but it isn’t quite able to knock it out. The result is an enjoyable movie, but one that doesn’t seem very special in the end.
Hancock. USA 2008. Directed by Peter Berg. Written by Vince Gilligan and Vincent Ngo. Cinematography by Tobias Schliessler. Music composed by John Powell. Starring Will Smith, Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron. 1 hour 32 minutes. MPAA rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and language. 3 stars (out of 5)
Filed under: Miscellaneous
I won’t read your review right now, I think there might be a chance I’ll review it tomorrow or Sat, but I think we share the same rating….I think, lol.
It’s funny, after thinking about it for a couple of days, I ended up giving it a lower rating than I’d planned.
As I was leaving the theater I was thinking “ok, that was enjoyable enough”, but the more I let it sink in, the more lacking it seemed and I started getting annoyed with how cool it could’ve been if it was raunchier and funnier.
How was Michael Bluth?
I usually skip them but I read the review before I saw it. Honestly I was hoping you’d give me more reason to see it, but alas, no.
I’m disappointed to hear the effects didn’t get any better from the lame look of the trailers. That’s really inexcusable for a major studio movie like this with such a huge star behind it being released for the holiday weekend.
K. He was very Michael Bluthy. I love that character, but I’d like to see him branch out a bit…same with his son George Michael.
Joel. If you were a huge Will Smith fan or a Peter Berg completist or something, I’d say you should see Hancock despite its flaws. You’re not though, so I won’t.
However, if someone says “Hey Joel, let’s go catch Hancock,” you can feel safe in going without wanting to plunge your head into a bucket full of lye and rusty nails.
Hahahaha, OK, thanks for that visceral recommendation there, Craig. I always like a good excuse to avoid bobbing for nails in the my trusty bucket of lye.
Also, I should add that it’s nowhere near as bad as apparently some reviewers are claiming.
How they can take a crap on this movie for trying and failing but give the Hulk a free pass for succeeding in its boringness is a mystery to me, but then I’m one of the guys who got off on Speed Racer.
Turns out my demands of summer movies are different from most folks.
There’s no way I’m going to see this. I’d rather save some money up for a Reprise or a Wall-E or an X-Files 2 or a Chop Shop or Encounters at the End of the World (it’s at the Rafael right now) or something.
And my wallet is still burning from getting those opening day IMAX tickets for The Dark Knight in San Francisco (the hype to which I have almost completely succumbed unlike everything else this summer).
Times are tough. The Dow just had the worst June since Hoover was president. Sorry, I’m not going to see a movie whose screenplay was butchered by Ultra-Hack Akiva Goldsman of Batman and Robin-A Beautiful Mind-Cinderella Man infamy.
Nice review, though, Craig. :)
Akiva was involved? No wonder.
If The Dark Knight lives up to half its marketing, it will be one of the best movies of the decade. Every aspect of the marketing of that movie, from the trailers to the posters to the viral campaign to even more posters has been absolute genius.
Yep, apparently Akiva was brought in to screw up what was originally an interesting script. Apparently it was just too good and different beforehand.
I agree, Joel. The marketing force of Warner Brothers’ The Dark Knight makes George Lucas and many others in Hollywood look comparatively braindead in terms of marketing a film. It’s been absolutely amazing.
Apparently Will Smith sold his soul to Akiva Goldsmith. Can’t seem to keep those two apart.
guess i’m gonna keep it ‘pure’ this geek style and not see hancock. yep i’m easy to predict. so easy….
“it’s a difficult tight rope to walk”
Craig, I think you still have MAN ON WIRE in your subconscious! LOL!!! But there could be a lot of worse things on your mind at this point!
As always, an eloquent piece……..I unloaded my wife and five kids at a multiplex in Clifton, about 15 minutes from the arthouse theatre where I saw the most accomplished Czech film BEAUTY IN TROUBLE. My wife and kids claim they really enjoyed HANCOCK, and they were relating many of the segments to me on the way home. I’m very happy they liked it, but I vowed since it released that I would decline on seeing it.
Although you have now downgraded your opinion of it, you are basically saying here is that is tolerable entertainment.
To Craig and all LIC devotees:
Have a wonderful 4th of July weekend, whether you are enjoying barbeque goodies are sitting in a dark, air-conditioned theatre!
Right back at you Sam. Try not to set any of your children on fire.
Ha, neat story about dropping your family off to see Hancock at the multiplex to check out… a Czech film at the arthouse.
Again you’re making me kind of wish I lived in New York, Sam.
I hung on into the third act, but by the time it gets to the hospital it really boils over onto the stove. Still and all, not nearly as bad as people seem to want to think it is.
It’s also great to see Michael Bluth and Mr. F … together again.
LOL Alexander!!!!!
My wife Lucille is a school principal and she loves movies, but sad to say not many that have subtitles!! She falls asleep much of the time. And with the kids at ages 12,11, 9, 7 and 6, I’m afraid I have no chance there! At least not yet. I’ve pulled off some these multi-movie ventures before, but the price I have to pay is being alone, away from the kids, which is a real drag. This is what one has to endure to see quality cinema these days!
That’s a lot of kids.
Aye, Jeff, aye.
There is just, something about Will Smith that fills the screen. I really think, he can do anything.
I’m pretty much with you Harvey, though the third act didn’t really bother me. Has anyone here read the original script or know where I can get my fingers on it?
Thanks for commenting babypook. Can I take it from your comment that you liked Hancock?
I see we felt the same, Craig…average entertainment that could have been much, much better if not for the lowest-common-denominator requirements placed on it by being a big budget summer movie.
I am surprised you found the CGI fakey. I didn’t have a problem with it all. I’m finding that one’s acceptance/rejection of CGI is highly, highly subjective. There were a number of Incredible Hulk reviews that I read that thought the CGI was fake looking there, when I thought it was exemplary (if I recall correctly, you thought it looked good too). I think there must be something beneath it, rather than the superficial level of technique at work. If you had connected with the story more on an emotional level, would you have instinctively given the film a pass on its CGI? It sounds like you required more of it because it was grounded in reality, but again, I didn’t have the same problems. I didn’t even think about the CGI, in fact, and thought it complemented the film well enough. Fascinating, how people can diverge on stuff like this at times.
Ok, SPOILERS BELOW for this next bit.
I’m also surprised you found the 3rd act twist ‘reasonable,’ when it was the dealbreaker for myself. The first 2/3 are a darkly comic super hero movie with some surprisingly tender moments. Not only did I enjoy Hancock’s cantankerousness, I also was (marginally) moved by his transformation (although it was a bit too abrupt). Then, all of a sudden, it becomes this epic love story for the ages. Where did that come from? I realize they hinted at it strongly enough (all of those confusing closeups of Charlize), but the film itself gave no indication that that was where it was heading. And they start chucking all this mythology at us, that they’re made in pairs and become mortal if they’re together and yada yada yada. I was fine with Hancock just ‘being.’ I didn’t need to know where he was from, etc.. I didn’t mind the love story angle, but I wish they had started with it rather than including it almost as an afterthought. What was it about the twist that you found to be reasonable, if I may ask?
So it sounds like we had the same overall reaction even as we had wildly different ones on certain elements. I, too, would like to track down the original script. I’ll see if I can put my prodigious Google talents to work and get a copy.
EDIT: Success! That didn’t take long. Ole Jeff Wells has it over at his website.
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/images/column/7108/tonight.pdf
Reading the script was going to be my weekend project, but I dove into Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels instead.
I can’t explain my beef with the FX further than I did in the review. I really thought it was a conflict with the otherwise realistic slant of the film, but perhaps not.
I’m also at a loss to explain why the third act twist bothered me so much less than anyone else. Is it because I was only on board the film to a point so I didn’t feel as badly burned? Ah well, perhaps I’ll have more once I read the script. Thanks for the link.
My problem with the ending basically involves everything that happened at the hospital.
The movie suddenly added new rules that contradicted a lot of previous material. It felt like the opposite of deus ex machina, it felt like the movie was just creating conflict for itself out of nowhere, rather than expand on its rather rich third-act twist.
This inconsistency was not helped by the fact that the movie suddenly dropped the humor and turned into “The Last Boy Scout” in terms of rain-drenched violence, which normally I would never have a problem with …
“it also skips the boring origin story, the arch-enemy bent on world domination and most of the other superhero tropes in between.”
That’s about the only positive I can take from it as well, Craig, but I also still like Will Smith. It’s an almost unconditional like at this point.
Skimming through that script, Evan, it sure looks like it didn’t translate that well. I don’t know where to place the blame but I was left pretty underwhelmed. I was unimpressed by the CGI (I was by the effects in Hulk, too, so at least’s that consistent), and I actually found the Theron bit really predictable, Evan. From her first eye contact with him it’s pretty clear that a.) there was something going on between them and b.) she’s a lot less surprised by his powers than anybody else. That it took over an hour to make this clear just annoyed me. I’m also with Harvey on the hospital ending. Blegh.
End cranky, disjointed ramble.
***Spoiler*** There was a certain point I finally clued in on the twist, but even then I thought she was going to turn out to be a bad guy. ***end spoilers***
I chalk up my acceptance of the movie overall to diminished expectations from the outset. Plus, it was only delivering on a low level for the first two thirds so I wasn’t too disappointed when it took a turn.
Plus it was nice and short.