Hancock

As far as I can tell, Hancock isn't based on a comic book, and I think the movie benefits from that. It escapes the typical superhero movie mold and takes on a shape all its own.

If you’ve seen the movie trailers for this film, you’ve got a pretty good idea what happens during the first third of the film.  This was something I really liked; the trailers didn’t give the movie away.  In fact, the real storyline of the movie isn’t even hinted at in the previews.  I think movie promoters should do this more often.

So, Will Smith plays a drunken super being with amnesia named John Hancock; when he awoke 80 years ago not knowing who he was, they asked for his “John Hancock” and so he obliged.  Like many superheroes, Hancock leaves a path of destruction in his wake; the refreshing difference in this film is that the people of the city he lives in aren’t sure if the repair costs are worth the lives he saves or the crimes he stops.  When he saves the life of a PR guy who offers to help Hancock clean up his image, the story begins to change.

The one problem I had with this movie was that all too often Hancock was confronted by thugs that weren’t smart enough not to mess with the guy that could send them into the next time zone with the flick of his pinky finger.  Part of this problem was the overused “call me (insert derogatory name here) again” cliché.  I first saw such things in Back to the Future when Tannen called Marty “chicken” over twenty years ago.  Don’t get me wrong; the resultant ass-kickings were way cool.  It just seems to me like they could have come up with a better way for the bad guy to get the good guy angry by now.

Overall I enjoyed the movie quite a bit.  I liked the unpredictable plot twist and the fact that they were able to make a superhero movie where no evil nemesis existed; there were no bad guys with superpowers in this movie.  The visual effects were great, and the mix of vocal music and original score worked well.  If you like Will Smith and don’t mind seeing a movie that breaks the superhero mold, I think you’ll like this movie.

Rating (out of 4):