Hancock

Let me be very clear, as an actor I dislike Will Smith with a passion, I really just don’t think he is very good; but in that statement lies an issue I loved The Pursuit Of Happyness, enjoyed I Am Legend, and now find myself having watched Hancock awarding the movie the highest accolade I can by stating that of the movies so far, Hancock is the best movie of 2008. I avoided everything I possibly could to do with Hancock because to be honest the trailer failed to impress me. To my surprise I laughed, enjoyed the action, and was almost caused to shed a tear watching this very different superhero movie.

 

In the past superhero movies characters are for the most part positive, occasionally seen as a danger; but for the most part exactly what they are categorised as being “Super Heroes”. Hancock’s superhero John Hancock (Will Smith) is not the traditional form of hero, he is an alcoholic, is verbally abusive, and has an appetite for destruction. While he wants to do good, nothing is ever quite thought through enough, while he might stop a group of armed thieves he may very well destroy half the city doing so. And this creates Hancock with a problem, he is not a superhero in the eyes of the public, he is a menace.

 

Enter branding executive Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), he’s had a very bad day; his latest plan to gain a big weight giant to become involved in a charity he supports has gone tragically wrong, and now on his way home he finds himself stuck in a car about to become the victim of an incoming freight train. Spared by Hancock, who in turn destroys the train, its carriages, its cargo, and also scares the life out of a woman; Ray proud to have been saved by Hancock immediately begins planning his next campaign, to turn Hancock from public enemy to public hero.

 

Hancock is a massive movie so big and well plotted out that it’s like the movie and its sequel all rolled into one, but in being so massive it has a surprisingly short running time 90 minutes from opening to closing credits. The beauty of Hancock is that other than being well pieced together it’s filmed in a very artistic manner, avoiding all the usual trappings of Hollywood superhero movies. I’m not clearing it entirely out of the equation of falling into a Hollywood movie, because it does have some traditional Hollywood style traits especially towards the end. What Hancock does offer is that very different eye; the camerawork is so intentionally not Hollywood, small Australian art-house movie maybe, but Hollywood no, no way. Combine this unique vision from one time Last Seduction star Peter Berg now a highly acclaimed director in his own right, with composers John Powell’s understated musical score and you have all the makings of something really special.

 

My movie choices are often out of whack with others, often what I love everybody else hates, but as I sat there in a packed cinema auditorium I could hear the voices of the others from the front of the cinema to the back, they all loved it; I heard laughter, I heard crying. And as I slowly waited to take my turn to leave the screening I heard the conversations of the other viewers, this movie really rocked there world.

 

What for me worked so well about Hancock other than the fact that it was nothing that I expected to see, was the fact that it never fails to surprise. A potential love interest for Hancock takes a surprising turn of events, and this is the very point that the movie fragments into two very different movies. From being a piece on misunderstanding, and abuse of sorts; the movie transforms its whole personality, everything that took place up  to the 50 minute point is suddenly abandoned and a brand new movie emerges from the wreckage of what was already a most magnificent movie, I must confess after the initial shock the second portion was not as good for me, but still it was an amazing movie.

 

Charlize Theron simmers as the wife of Ray, Mary. Again looking completely different from her other recent acting roles, she has put the sex back into sex appeal and it’s hard to believe that this is the same actress that we recently saw in The Valley Of Elah, or even more notably Monster. Mary is one of the most wonderfully understated characters in the movie, well for a portion of it; she is kind of there and you know she’s there but seldom is seen.

 

But the star of the movie has to be the wonderful Jason Bateman, he really is an instantly likeable character not just in reality, but here as Ray. Ray is a trusting loving soul that really wants to change the world. I love the friendship between him and Hancock, it makes for one of the best buddy movie offerings I have seen for a long time, a mutual love that is purely non sexual. On his resurgence of popularity Bateman remains in interviews eternally modest “Who knows how long this wave I ride will last, who knows how long it will be before I muck it up!” It’s this sort of blunt, and very human honesty that shines through to the screen and makes him such a great and incredibly modest actor.

 

Hancock really is (granted in my opinion) a most wonderful movie, something that you can watch again and again and never tire of; with great special effects, the nastiest of villains, and a simmering series of love stories that will tickle the hearts of any romantic.

 

Hancock is at cinemas now.