Hancock

[sleigh]

Denise & went to see Hancock last night. Bottom line: it's a decent, entertaining movie with some excellent acting. Unfortunately, it could have easily been a great movie, and it isn't.

The problem is that it's actually two movies. There's the beginning movie, the actual excellent one, about a reluctant and troubled superhero who -- because he either doesn't care or doesn't bother to think -- generally causes more trouble than he solves when he intervenes. He saves the life of an idealistic publicist, who in gratitude undertakes to change his public perception. Along with that, we have interaction between Hancock and the wife and child of the publicist. It's all nicely-done and very well-acted... and I was sitting there thinking "Wow, this moving way too quickly..." All the beats of the plot were coming fast and furious (though you do need to keep the usual separation of the realities of physics from what happens in the movie), and it was clear that this story couldn't possibly hold together for the entire movie. The pacing felt like that of a short feature.

There was a false resolution when the 'new' Hancock foils a bank robbery and is applauded by the onlookers and police, followed by a denouement... and then this nascent erotic tension between Hancock and the wife seems to come to a head and I'm thinking... "OK, so now we're going to add this new complication to the relationship -- we have Hancock having an affair with the wife of the man who saved him. Good..."

And then...

If you've seen the movie, you know what happens at that point. The plot abruptly turns 180 degrees, and all of the sudden we're in the middle of a typical, rather formulaic superhero movie. It's not a bad superhero movie, mind you, but we've seen it a dozen or more times already over the years, and despite the necessary differences of the characters, all the 'usual' beats are there.

We'll even ignore the gaping, enormous plot hole that drives the eventual resolution.

What irritates me about this movie is that it could have been excellent, driven by character and grounded by fine acting rather than gee-whiz special effects and action. This could have been an exploration of the psyche of a terrifically flawed man gifted with extraordinary powers and how he copes with that. It could have been a true drama rather than an 'action movie.' It had the possibility of taking a trio of fine actors and making something tremendously special out of the superhero genre.

But instead, someone (or a committee of someones) made the decision that no, this is going to be just another superhero action flick. What a shame. This could have been an incredible film. Instead, it's just more of the same. It's a good same, mostly because of Will Smith and Charlize Theron, both of whom especially sparkle and who are ably abetted by Jason Bateman, but it's still the same movie we've seen before.

Too bad.

Comments

[parsleigh.livejournal.com]

It still made me cry...something I don't often get from action films.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

I found it a lot like a Keith Laumer story in the second half.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

See, and I thought they were going to go with a "physical distance or emotional closeness drives your powers" thing for that eventual resolution. I agree, though, that I went in thinking it was going to be the first movie based on the trailers. You could tell that something was going on between the Smith and Theron characters from the moment they met, though, so I was waiting for something there. I'd guessed that it was she that landed him in the hospital way back when he lost his memory. I guess I was sort of right.