Posts Tagged ‘superhero’

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448157/

Dir. Peter Berg

Welcome to what is essentially a fevered hallucination in which Will Smith repeatedly farts in the face of Superman, giggling like a child each time.

This is the story of an unpopular, drunken, amnesiac, hobo superhero who undergoes a public relations campaign to improve his image and, in turn, discovers his origins. It’s horrible. Every ounce of potential in the concept is neatly destroyed by a hamfisted script, poor casting and weak direction.

The greatest flaw of the film is the storyline. The story has a traditional three-act structure that follows the arc of Hancock’s improvement and rise in popularity as hero and the discovery of his origin. As an overview, it is fine, but in practice the details of each of these plotlines are awful. Hancock’s rise in popularity is swift, easy and basically just there for a series of mediocre gags which use none of the potential of the superhero concept. It could have been a proper character journey, with comedic elements, but it’s just a flat set of jokes with no development. It also completely negates the intention of one of the other main characters, Ray, who is trying to start a charity and works as Hancock’s PR manager. Ray’s first idea for improving Hancock’s popularity is to have him go to jail for his outstanding subpoenas, showing LA just how much they need him as the crime rate soars. Now I may be wrong, but a man who we’re supposed to sympathise with, who is trying to start a charity, would not suggest that for the sake of Hancock’s image that he let people be put into terrible danger, but that’s what happens. When Hancock is let out by the mayor to stop a bank robbery he successfully listens to Ray’s (oddly sleazy) PR advice and everyone loves him for it. This is basically the major plotline done and dusted, and it moves onto his origin and never references this major element of the film again.

His origin, the great mystery of the film, is revealed thanks to the completely obvious twist that Ray’s wife, Mary, is also a superhero! Hooray for convenience. This, in itself, is bad, but the actual origin is much worse; they are immortals who were built 3,000 years ago by… someone… and they’ve lived as superheroes/gods/angels since then. The Immortals were also built in pairs and he and Mary are (genetically??) husband and wife. The reason for his amnesia is that when two immortals are close together they start to lose their powers, Hancock had a head injury while stopping a crime 80 years ago and Mary flew off to let him heal. The actual origin of Hancock, or what he and Mary really are, is and vague and the film leaves you feeling like nothing was actually ever explained, aside from the amnesia, which feels like an poor excuse for a plot device anyway.

It’s a script that feels full of half-baked ideas and excuses, yet surprisingly this script was passed around Hollywood for 10 years before it was put into production. It had numerous rewrites and yet still only achieved the status of “mediocre”.

The other major issue with the film is in the casting, mostly of Hancock himself. Will Smith is a talented actor, he has shown that in his career, but he is completely unsuited for the part of Hancock. His anger and careless attitude feel like a pantomime and his status as a “destitute hero” at the start is just not conveyed in the performance. I wouldn’t be surprised if Smith himself just saw this as a paycheck, everything about it is half-hearted and I just wasn’t immersed at all.

In short, this is a bad film. One that isn’t even amusing in its incompetence, merely boring.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/

Dir. Zack Snyder

Instead of a normal write up I present a liveblog of my thoughts that I kept while watching this, this is entirely unedited from its original presentation:

-         Right now. I’ve read the comic, didn’t have the money or inclination to see the film in theatres and am catching up now on a borrowed DVD.

I’ll be keeping you updated with my thoughts as I go through it.

15 Minutes in: The opening credits were an interesting way to introduce the history but too long given that some of it wasn’t that informative.

Initial impression is that the film is suffering from the same thing all Zack Snyder’s have so far, too much time on the visuals and too little spent on the acting. Lines already feel flat and oddly placed at times.

-         28:50 – Rorschach is good, the voice isn’t what I personally imagined but it’s working in its own way and doesn’t dilute the character for me. Dan, seems passable right now, the others I’ll leave for a bit.

The music is pretty awfully integrated. I had to stop to write this one because I’ve just heard ‘99 Red Balloons’ horribly forced into a scene that didn’t need it. I understand the choices in music but they’re just overpowering and in most cases so far have been detrimental to the scene.

-         29:45 – “I’m glad I ordered the four-legged chicken”

-         37:42 – I assume that Snyder is trying to make the audience laugh with Ride of the Valkyries. If not DAMN.

Directing actors is not something Snyder does well at all. Silk Spectre (who is apparently 67, I ain’t buying it) just blanded out a whole sequence and The Comedian just jumped emotional states in stupid ways that felt quite hammy.

-         54:51 – Pacing is way off. It’s too slow and too ponderous when combined with the flat direction, it’s not particularly engaging whereas the comic was by this point.

The dialogue suffers from being taken from the comic so closely (well, a lot of the film does) because, as with many comics, the dialogue works better when written and imagined than when performed. In one odd way it’s similar to the Mallrats dialogue which, if you watch the film again, is a lot funnier in theory than in practice, in that film ONLY Jason Lee hits the mark.

-         What this highlights is what many other adaptations do as well, that each form media is it’s own world and that must be taken into consideration. What works in a comic may not work in a film (take the x-men costume changes) what works in a film may not work in a book. It’s a case of understanding the inherent strengths and weaknesses in each form.

That said 1:10:16 – One of my favourite chapters of the comic, John’s multi-time narrative, has some good parts and some bad parts. The worse bit being the parts concerning his reformation, the cuts are way too quick and lack the weight they did on reading them. The music is still a major problem.

Overall the visuals have been nice, great attention to detail in the production-design and a good overall aesthetic. In motion I feel Snyder is too slow-mo happy, kinda like John Woo.

Also I’m picking up a lot of Blade Runner influence, oddly. It’s certainly made an impression on Snyder at some point.

-         1:28:24 – Rorschach’s interview and the death of Walter Kovacs scene was good. Probably the best part of the film so far. It was uncomfortable, grim and gave you a proper sense of why Rorschach became who he is.

It also contained one of the only pieces of genuine acting I’ve seen so far in the film in Rorschach’s “God didn’t butcher that little girl” speech. Well done, kudos to Jackie Earle Haley and it’s the best piece of drama that Snyder has managed in his career!

-         1:40:26 – The minor fall, the major lift, the utter failure of music. (at this moment in the film Dan and Laurie were having sex to the song ‘Hallelujah’)

-         1:46:02 – LET’S ROCK OUT FOR SOME POOR EDITED FIGHTING WOOP WOOP.

Also I loved the directors note that must have said “Malin, when you role please hold that stupid pose while we sweep up to look at the craft, it doesn’t matter how it looks, it’s in the comic.”

-         Snyder has proven, over multiple films, that his strengths are as follows:
1)Action
2)In-camera speed changes
3)Following a comic book
4)Directing angry scenes

His weaknesses are:
1)Direction of scenes requiring emotions that aren’t anger.
2)Conversational direction
3)Overuse of Slow-motion and in-camera speed changes

The acting in the film is occasionally good, often just adequate and sometimes terrible. The film is, as of 1:52:03, a mess. It’s not awful but it’s not great and, unless a lot changes, is basically going to resolve as forgettable.

-         2:01:43 – Comedian father revelation utterly fails in light of the lack of it having any basis in the viewers mind before that moment.

Same problem occured bubastis appears.

AND AS I TYPE THIS JOHN AND LAURIE’S SPEECH ON MARS HAS ALL EMOTIONAL DEPTH STOLEN BY THE SUDDEN MUSICAL INTERRUPTION

-         Now while I know losing the giant space vagina octopus was really an improvement for the movie, a part of me misses it. It was just so strange that I couldn’t help but love it.

Couple of issues with the ending. John’s “You’ve not succeeded” line really needed to be in there, delivered to Adrian. I’m not sure if I’m convinced that having Dr Manhattan be the force the world unites against works as much a totally unknown threat but I wouldn’t EVER say the space octopus needed to be in it.

Overall the film was kinda dull compared to comic. It was poorly paced and too much time was spent getting it to look authentic than to actually tell the story. The direction was mediocre and didn’t work with the actors in the way the film needed, it was just flat and meant many of the performances had no life.

The real killer of the movie, honestly it’s worse element, was the fucking horrible music mixing. So many times it completely trashed the scenes that were happening and was a complete and total failure on every single level, it’s astonishingly bad from a filmmaking point of view.

I will say that ONE thing was better than the comic, Rorschach “DO IT” shout worked better by having the chance to be performed more completely than in the few panels it had originally.