Hancock (2008)

Hollywood's inclination to cause as much destruction as possible in their superhero films is taken to the extreme in this over the top silly film. I generally enjoy Will Smith, but he's really bad here - maybe because he wasn't given anything decent to do. As much as I'd like to forget this film, I won't because I'll always remember how bad it was.Great visuals, though.

Hancock I feel was unjustly criticized because the trailers marketed it as a goofy superhero comedy when in reality, it takes dramatic turns to show the dark side of being the only being with superpowers. However, I feel like it balances tones very evenly. The dramatic parts are very well done, and the comedic parts are hilarious. Hancock is a prime example of why you shouldn't judge a movie based on the marketing.9/10

What would you call someone who is bad-mannered, foul-mouthed, destructive, homophobic, unreasonable, and drunken who is a liar and an asshole? Probably not a superhero. Will Smith plays Hancock, a slacker with all those attributes who also has supernatural powers. Maybe you could call him a superzero--someone with the potential to be spectacular who falls far short.He's a reluctant hero for sure, who usually rises above his crassness only when forced to, and then leaves careless destruction in the wake of his heroics.He meets Ray (Jason Bateman), an optimistic PR man who thinks Hancock should change his image. Ray's wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), seems unconvinced. What follows is an unpredictable story about love and possible redemption. There are bad guys, of course, who complicate matters, but the resolution of this story feels messy and contrived. By the end of the film, viewers may feel like it was all just an origin story that served no purpose except to be the foundation for other real stories to follow. But who would want to emotionally invest in a hero that still feels less than realized, a temporary patchwork of questionable values?One feels that an opportunity has been missed. Imperfect heroes can be quite interesting if their story makes them lovable or compelling. Hancock strains to achieve either.

(Will warn when I get to the spoilers...) The concept is superb: A superhero who acts like a bum and causes just as much damage as he does good, making the whole world hate him, yet he feels compelled to continue saving lives. What's more, Will Smith gives this character depth in a superb acting job, instead of just making him a cartoon character.The first half sets up this character with just the right amount of comedy, and has him meet a PR guy who wants to help him improve his public image and himself as a person, leading to some great comedy.(Major spoilers follow) Then comes the second half that ruins everything. It's not that the second half switches into a different movie. It's that the writers seemed to have been drinking all of the bottles that Hancock left behind, and stopped making any sense whatsoever.First of all, if he was a superhero for 3000 years before they found him in a hospital, then obviously the world knows who he is, so why did no one know him and tell him who he was?! And why would he and his doctors think he became a superhero only after his hospital stay? I don't believe they missed this obvious point. This alone kills the whole setup.Second, if they become mortal every time he gets close to her, why didn't he feel anything during their first long family dinner together? Or worse: When they fought, why didn't they kill each other or cause any damage to each other? According to the ending, all he has to do is put a mere kilometer of distance between them to become immortal again, so obviously it's the distance alone that causes it, contradicting everything that happened before.And what's the deal with the popcorn and tornadoes? Anyone? They get a triple-tornado when they get together and yet they stayed together several times before according to her, and the world didn't notice? And then there's her character. It's like they used a different writer for each segment of the movie. She transitions from normal person to super-bitch, to crazy person who enjoys wrecking the city for no reason, who then claims to be stronger than him just for the feminists in the crowd (and yet the world forgot everything she did for 3000 years?), and finally to a self-sacrificing saint. I kept praying that the movie would switch back to the Hancock character and save itself, but it never did. Huge disappointment. If only they had focused exclusively on his slower transition as a character...