Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Hancock: A super mess

By Andrew Gaug

When audiences look for a bird or plane in theaters, they won't be finding Superman this year. Instead, it will be a surly, profane hobo by the name of John Hancock.

Being one of the few superhero movies not based on a comic or book, 'Hancock' has all the potential to be the next big cinematic hero. You've got Will Smith in probably his loosest role yet, a great supporting cast and an ambiguous back story that could go in any direction.

Of course, the problem is, the movie has no idea where to steer him, leaving an effective cast including "Juno's" Jason Bateman and "The Italian Job's" Charlize Theron to do their best with the weak material given to them.

The movie basically plays as two very different halves. The first half is a fun, foul-mouthed good time as the audience discovers what little there is to know about Hancock — he's a drunk, he always screws up when trying to save people and nobody likes him. Meanwhile, Ray Embrey (Bateman) is a struggling PR rep who sees representing and changing Hancock's reputation as his meal ticket to big money.

When the movie shifts gears from just following Hancock and Embrey around to trying to delve deep into family problems that occur with the bond between these two, it loses its balance and never regains it.

Added subplots with Embrey's wife, Mary (Theron), and a haphazardly thrown-in main villain only add to the movie's inconsistencies and rushed feel.

Director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) has a knack for using a lot of visual tricks and styles to tell a simple story. With a story that is only slightly above your average superhero origins tale, he tries to cram in so much bang and flair, it comes off as almost pandering to a mainstream audience.

The same goes for the movie's story. Hancock is a surprisingly crass and crude anti-hero with a limited memory of who he is. The mystery of his identity and why he's a lush is one of the most interesting parts walking into the movie. But when it's revealed, it feels like the entire movie deflates.

Much like Hancock's identity crisis, the movie has its own personal conflicts. The movie wants to have as much fun as any other typical Will Smith film, which it succeeds at doing. Sadly, the writers seem to have little idea how to transition out of those entertaining scenes to super serious and sometimes incredibly dark moments such as the movie's climax. It jars its audience from one emotion to the next without any middle ground and comes off as slapdash and somewhat lazy.

Rumors swirled that the original cut of 'Hancock' was rated R, forcing the director to cut it down, a move that seems to hurt the film. For such a creative imagining of a hero, or anti-hero, the movie feels like it could have used an extra half-hour to let the audience spend time with the characters. Instead, it prefers to only scrape the surface before going into its next CGI-enhanced fight scene.

It's not that 'Hancock' doesn't have its moments. Hancock and Ray Embrey's early scenes together are laugh-out-loud funny as well as many of the situations Hancock finds himself in during the beginning. But it reeks of too much editing and rushed storytelling to enjoy more than once.

Will Smith may be the king of the Fourth of July weekend, but this probably won't pack theaters long after that. It opens Wednesday, July2.