Kelly Wand"Hancock" For Less Money
July 7th 2008 10:21
Like Iron Man, Hancock's more fun when he drinks.
(Spoiler warning: Hancock features a terrifically wacky plot twist midway through that should definitely be experienced firsthand before reading any further or listening to chatty kathies who already saw it. It’s almost worth the price of admission, assuming you snuck in.)
Much like Will Smith’s last holiday aw-hell-no “I Am Legend,” Hancock ruins its intriguing first half with the introduction of a female character who’s supposed to be a bad-ass but is mysteriously afraid to show it. Not that Peter Berg’s* slapdash camerawork, the inconsistent musical score, and what feels like a solid missing hour of necessary story beats help much, but at least the pitch-perfect performances of Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Jason Bateman provide some worthy laughs (intercut with much not-so-worthy angst). Smith’s John Hancock (so christened because “Doe” doesn’t sound very blockbustery) plays a burned-out, crusty, embittered superhero whose indifferently destructive tendencies would almost qualify him as a supervillain, save for the fact that supervillains have schemes revolving around world domination and all Hancock wants to do with his godlike flight, strength, and invulnerability is sprawl on a parkbench and get toasted with a bottle of Wild Turkey. (Which is actually when he’s doing the least harm, so what’s the problem?)
The movie’s supposed to convince you that people wouldn’t like having Hancock around because he’s surly and breaks stuff, though in most mainstream comics superheroes cause roughly the same amount of carnage and never get billed. We’re also meant to believe that the only kid who likes Hancock (because eleven-year-old American boys just HATE invulnerable black dudes who drink, fly, and cause property damage) is the son of a PR guy Hancock rescues. The PR guy, Ray (played with amusingly oblivious restraint by Bateman), is intended to be sympathetic because he parks his car in the middle of railroad tracks and when a train appears and he can't back up, doesn’t ever think to try opening his door and exiting the vehicle. He’s also married to Charlize, whom he’s apparently never noticed doesn’t seem to age or bleed.
The principal story arc, such as it isn’t, is that Bateman, who’s not a very good PR guy from what we’re shown, “redeems” Hancock by persuading him to do a few weeks of hard time and to start saying, “Good job” to the cops who can’t seem to accomplish anything without Hancock’s help. This sounds funny, but is staged and scored to be heartfelt and moving (I smell suit). Hancock reluctantly (and abruptly) complies with this regimen since Ray’s kid likes him and Ray’s hot blond wife Angel (Theron) makes a mean plate of spaghetti. The penitentiary Hancock submits to staying in turns out to be topheavy with inmates who were incarcerated thanks to Hancock. They inexplicably get in his face and threaten him, even though they already know they can’t harm him and are presumably well-versed with his anti-social tendencies. Hancock teaches the two worst of these a valuable lesson in anatomical trigonometry but you don’t get to actually see him do it since that would make a PG-13 movie R-rated, and according to the behavioral psychologists at the MPAA American fifteen-year-olds can only be shown conservatively rationed levels of CG butthole-related comedy or they might try to emulate it.
Thanks to the miracle of the American penal system and support groups, Hancock gradually becomes a better person, even going so far as to start missing basketball shots because making it every time hurts the murderers' and rapists’ feelings.
Once Hancock’s released from prison, the story starts getting weird fast -- good-weird at first. SPOILERS AHOY! Hancock finds out he’s not the last “of his kind” after all, and that the only other one left has been his soulmate off and on for thousands of years. The tragic catch is that so long as they’re together, their powers deteriorate and they become steadily mortal (it’s a bit similar to “Ladyhawke,” only with eagles instead of hawkes and tornadoes instead of ladies). But because being mortal, sober and in love is allegedly superior to being immortal and shit-faced, every other member of this godlike membership has already nobly paired up and died instead of nobly protecting mankind and staying single. Hancock forgot all this because he got amnesia on the way to see “Frankenstein” 80 years ago and got mugged in Miami (“they try to get to you through me,” Hancock’s soulmate tells him, "they" presumably being racist Miami-ans circa 1931). Despite these thousands of years in which they have to have been together long enough to actually qualify as soulmates, neither of them seems to have aged much yet. The resolution of all this is when the soulmate shrilly declares that Hancock’s destiny is to be “mankind’s insurance policy” by remaining heroic and leaving town, so he acquiescently moves to New York while she resumes her now pointless marriage to a man who will grow old and die decades before her. She, who can control the weather and is more powerful than Hancock, gets to preserve her anonymity (even though it was kinda blown during a huge battle with Hancock in the middle of a busy L.A. thoroughfare), on the grounds that she’s a girl. She, who has presumably watched Hancock lose his spirit and will to live vicariously on TV or in the newspapers for decades and did nothing to ease his pain, gets mad at him for now being curious about his identity. And Jason Bateman's cool with staying married to an immortal chick who's soulmates with a dude in New York and whom he now talks to on the phone while the soulmate ignores their conversation disinterestedly. And a bank robber whose hand Hancock cut off with a lampshade goes to a hospital where a wounded Hancock lies inexplicably unguarded and thinks he can hurt him this time why again? Who debriefed this one-handed escape artist on the perils of immortal soulmate-hood prior to his suspiciously offscreen prison break?
Also, if Hancock loses his strength after extended exposure to his soulmate (a key bit of info she neglects to inform him of until he's dying), why is his recovery so instantaneous (and hers)? Wasn’t he “around” her in L.A. for a few years before this without any ill effects? And for weeks flirting with her off and on before his sudden overnight “weakening” that finally occurs when she’s not even physically nearby? For that matter, how has Bateman even managed to have sex with a goddess all this time without getting his spine crushed? (The question of whether Theron can have offspring by either of her male leads is quietly sidestepped.)
Never mind: in the end, all ends implausibly well: Hancock, as alone as he was before but reformed and sober and therefore happy, defaces the moon, which a bit inaccurately a character refers to as “changing the world.” And an Easter egg cleverly stashed after the first few closing credits gives you one final satisfying glimpse of someone calling Hancock an “asshole.” (As usual, we don’t get to see the follow-up.)
Overall, I preferred the first-act “asshole” Hancock, along with his ski cap and sweatshirt ensemble to the boring by-the-numbers black jumpsuit Bateman himself apparently knitted for him out of Kevlar.
It was Hancock's disinterest in humanity that humanized him.
*This guy’s remaking “Dune”? Yeesh.
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