From the moment Hancock first introduces Will Smith as a drunken, glowering,
foul-mouthed superhero, it seems clear that he's eventually going to
rehabilitate himself into the charming version of Will Smith, the one who
became famous on the strength of wisecracks and a famously infectious grin. The
movie telegraphs that change in the trailer and even in the first half-hour of
action, as Smith's hostile hero—who frequently causes millions of dollars
in damages while sloppily foiling crimes in Los Angeles—meets PR man
Jason Bateman, who offers him a major public-image makeover. But the obvious
never happens. Instead, Hancock takes off at right angles, essentially turning into M.
Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable, as seen through the big action lens of modern superhero
movies like Iron Man and the Spider-Man series.
Like Shyamalan's movies, Hancock leans clumsily on a twisted, complicated mythology that's
revealed in awkward chunks just in time to become relevant to the plot. Unlike
Shyamalan's films, it's a propulsive action movie that zips through its first
half-hour on a wave of big setpieces, directed with herky-jerky handheld
queasiness by Friday Night Lights' Peter Berg. The story attempts to balance pathos, drama,
action, and comedy, with mixed results. When the soundtrack answers Smith's
latest over-the-top act of super-violence with the theme from Sanford And
Son, or the script
mines running-gag yuks out of Smith's frustration over all the people who call
him "asshole," Hancock seems so recklessly silly that it's hard to follow its sudden turn into
tragedy.
Still, it's a daring, even mildly challenging mixture for a
superhero film, and while the pieces don't entirely add up, the puzzle is at
least original. Smith is too much a ubiquitous superstar to entirely disappear
into his role, but his playing against type offers its own flavors of comedy,
and Bateman, in his comfortably well-worn role as a glib peacemaker, fills the
charisma void left by Smith's stony performance. Hancock is an odd film—part My
Super Ex-Girlfriend,
part Transformers-esque
messy blockbuster, part weird indie comic—but while it isn't necessarily
as poignant as it wants to be, it manages the humor and heroics side of the
equation admirably enough. If nothing else, it's worth it just to see a
ready-made Superman-sized superhero in action without all the baggage of
decades of retellings and reworkings; even looking at familiar faces working
through a familiar genre, it's nice to be surprised for once.