Sam Saw: Hancock

Hit the link for my review of Hancock.

Hancock is short...I mean really short...like, made for TV movie short. In total, the entire movie is 88 minutes, and that's counting the opening and closing credits. Now, I'm not one of those people that thinks a movie has to be two and a half hours, but eighty minutes is pretty damn slim. As it turns out, the short length is a blessing for Hancock; the plot is such a mess that anymore than eighty minutes would have been unbearable.

Hancock is a disillusioned superhero who no longer wants to fill his role as savior/extraordinaire. He lives in a trailer home somewhere near the Grand Canyon, or so the cinematographers would like you to think...wait I'm remembering another sub-par superhero flick where the protagonist has his "fortress of solitude" in a Grand Canyon like locale....that movie was called Jumper...minus ten points for similarities to Jumper. Anyways, back to Hancock. He's a drunk who sleeps on public benches all day, curses at kids and hollers at passing women like a construction worker who just got out of prison. Oh yeah, and he has amnesia.

Back to the plot. When harassed by the public enough, he begrudgingly "saves the day". Here's where the fun happens. Hancock flies around breaking everything in sight, and if playing with Lego's as a child has taught us anything, breaking things is fun. That's the first ten minutes of the movie, and it's great. It was refreshing to see a super hero who isn't just another super-man clone...cookie cutter is boring.

The fifteen minute mark is where things all get rolled up into a giant ball of suck. It is at this point, that the film's producers realize that you can't make an entire movie out of a solitary character getting drunk and braking things without any plot development. Enter Jason Bateman, a PR man with a heart gold, chasing the dream of getting all the world's multinationals to help save the planet through charity. Bateman's car gets stuck on the train tracks (really...the train track scene cliche) and low and behold who saves him at the last minute........Superman......Hah! Got you, you thought I was going to say Hancock...nope he's passed out, drunk on a bench, while this is all happening. Oh wait, that didn't happen, that's just what should have happened if the movie was a little creative.

Unfortunately, it is Hancock who appears out of nowhere to save the day...Bateman's character is so thankful that he offers to be Hancocks PR rep and help him gain back some of that goodwill he's squandered. Bateman's beautiful wife, played by Charlese Theron is disapproving, but eventually gives in when she sees how enthusiastic her husband is to help. I'll talk about her more later. The moment where Hancock enters Bateman's house to take him up on his proposal is where you should stop watching this movie.

The rest of the movie is absolutely atrocious. Firstly, Hancock reforms his ways and becomes that cookie cutter hero, right down to the skin tight super hero garb. He saves the day, pats police officers on the back, smiles, and worst of all, doesn't break anything. In doing this, the film makers completely betray their audience. The movie is billed as a movie about a down and out super hero, one who is different from all the others, yet by thirty minutes in, we find ourselves watching the same old hackneyed rubbish.

But wait, there's more. Even when the filmmakers decide to change the tone of the movie entirely they don't do it right. Every good superhero needs a villain right? Well, Hancock doesn't have one. The sorry excuse for an antagonist in this film is a bank robber with a fake southern accent...

Even more egregious than the lackluster villain, is the terrible twist thrown in which makes the entire movie up until that point look like a plot device put in place so that one moment could occur. The movie is no longer in theaters, so I think it's safe to say that none of you will be too upset with me when I spoil the twist. Charlize Theron is a superhero too! Wait for it....and she and Hancock used to be married! That's right, the whole Jason Bateman plot line has been put in place solely so Hancock can reunite with his long lost lover.

So, to recap, for the first 30 minutes, Hancock is a movie about a reluctant, self destructive superhero, the next 20 a standard cliche superhero movie. The 20 minutes after that is devoted to the "twist" and some semi romantic dialogue about how Hancock and the not so subtly named Angel (Theron) used to be married. That brings us to 70 minutes. The last 10 is a mix of romance and horribly boring action. The lame villain, only to be topped in terribleness by the main villain from the first transporter movie, comes back and attacks Hancock, who has been weakened by love. Yes, being close to Charlize Theron weakens him in a love conquers all type of way, but physically, as in, he loses his powers. In a drab action sequence, Hancock fights some nameless thugs and then dispatches the "villain". He and Angel then realize they can never be together because of their debilitating love. They part ways. The end.

Hancock is just a huge mess. The fact that they tried to cram so many types of film into one movie is baffling. The movie would have been much more enjoyable had they chose one theme and stuck with it. An entire movie about the psyche and struggles of a disillusioned super hero would have been interesting, but difficult to pull off, which is why everyone is so worried about the Watchmen movie. A standard superhero movie, where Hancock reforms and then fights some super villain would have been okay, if not a little stale. Even a romantic movie about two super-heroes trying to maintain a relationship while dealing with the demands of saving the world on a day to day basis would have been watchable. In the end, Hancock is just too much of a jumble of random movie parts to recommend to anyone.

D