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[FILM REVIEW] 'Hancock' the sardonic superhero

By Bob Strauss
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, LOS ANGELES
Friday, Jul 04, 2008, Page 16

PHOTO COURTESY OF SONY

Hancock shambles along pleasantly enough for an hour or so. Of course, your pleasure depends on how much you like watching Will Smith act surly as an alcoholic, irresponsible superhero whose crime fighting causes so much property damage he's being sued by half of Los Angeles. Smith does this act very well, for the record, but he's not the admirable, crowd-pleasing guy casual moviegoers love.

He is funny, though, belligerent and kind of stupid. He's sure to react badly when people give him grief, which is all the time.

It's not just a harder-edged, but a more committed comic performance than those of Hitch or the Men in Black films. And it needs to be. Hancock's script, credited to Vince Gilligan and Vy Vincent Ngo and surely worked over by superwriter producers Akiva Goldsman and Michael Mann, doesn't have the greatest gags or lines in the world. Delivery is at least seven-tenths of the humor, and Smith delivers expertly.

So does Jason Bateman, as the well-meaning publicist Ray Embrey, who insists on fixing Hancock's image after the superguy saves his life. Ray's wife, Mary, is kind of a wet blanket (played by the humor-challenged Charlize Theron, how could she not be?). Someone has to worry about having a freak with the strength and judgment of a charging rhino staggering around the house and influencing their kid.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SONY

So things go along amusingly as Hancock tries to reform and succeeds enough to win a little public love. We're waiting for a real test of his newfound sobriety to hit - which wouldn't be unimaginative storytelling, just the logical direction the plot needs to go in to resolve the key issues it's set up.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SONY

We're also wondering about what Hancock is and where he came from (the seemingly immortal being can't remember anything before the 1930s), but it's not all that important.

So, guess what the movie's third act is all about? That's right, the least-relevant theme. And it doesn't address that very well. All these new rules and reasons for Hancock and his powers are set up, then contradicted whenever a cheap emotional moment or action thrill can be grabbed.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SONY

Oh, and it stops even trying to be funny. Stops. Right. Dead.

The tone changes so radically, it's like Hancock suddenly thinks it's a genre movie, like No Country for Old Men, except it's just baffling without being profound.

Too bad. Lord knows the superhero movie needs the kind of sarcastic, angry ridicule director Peter Berg brought to his debut film, Very Bad Things. And the scruffy, handheld camera aesthetic Berg perfected on Friday Night Lights and The Kingdom is a nice tool for sullying the pristine CGI unreality of all those Marvel Comics movies we've been buried in.

FILM NOTE HANCOCK Director: Peter Berg Starring: Will Smith (John Hancock), Charlize Theron (Mary Embrey), Jason Bateman (Ray Embrey), Jae Head (Aaron Embrey), Eddie Marsan (Red), David Mattey (Man Mountain), Maetrix Fitten (Matrix), Thomas Lennon (Mike), Johnny Galecki (Jeremy), Hayley Marie Norman (Hottie) Running time: 92 minutes Taiwan release: Today

That all has its place in Hancock until the movie veers toward mythos-building and myth-making. In other words, until it becomes like all those other super movies, this one started out pointing at and saying, "That's absurd; let's get loaded and rip 'em to shreds."
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