The big budget behind this flick works both for and against it. For in the sense that it provides for some impressive special effects and action sequences and against in that it’s almost all flash and no substance. The movie may try to staple on this “serious” storyline in the second, inferior, part of the film, but it’s not fooling anyone. This is a brash, loud, in your face, big-budget movie that just wants to show you the cool tricks it’s learned. Did the studios think we would take it very seriously just because it puts on a straight face towards the end? If they did they are sadly mistaken.
There is a plot point, which I won’t give away, that had me rolling my eyes. A big problem with this film is that there is no logically placed villain to oppose our anti-hero and so the film feels the need to, apparently, make one up on the very spot part-way through. In fact more than one; there’s a bank robber who takes Hancock’s wrath more personally than others have, and the other is the aforementioned one that I won't mention. The concept is a decent enough one to begin with, but there seems the producers had no viable place for it to go. Consequently, they seem to have just made things up as they went along and it comes off as a bit of a mess.
I must admit that Will Smith is a likeable actor in pretty much every film he’s in. He has a charismatic presence about him that few actors have and is able to make us root for an asshole we should hate. Smith has come far since his Fresh Prince of Bel Air days and I say more power (pun certainly intended) to him. He makes the movie sufferable in its more weak moments.
Hancock is like a really great looking sports car, the one you’ve had your eye on ever since you were a kid. But after the novelty of it wears off you are left with an annoyance and obstruction of sorts that is only there to look good and do not much else. There’s some fun to be had here and there towards the beginning of it, but as a whole it fails to drive along the way it should. And ultimately, it leaves you wishing you could trade it in for something with a little more staying power.
Article comments
1 - Preston
Saw the movie yesterday. It was an incredibly stupid story but an equally incredibly good movie. I don't know, does that make sense?
2 - jacques mazard
will smith movie only will smith can pull this movie off not a gutter super heroe but a down on his luck super heroe i can say story do come together at the end and all together comes out to be a very incredible movie and you can see the making of great realistic superhero meaning he has flaws but he did the amazing.... well iam a fan would like the comic book