Posts Tagged ‘will smith’

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.