Movie Review: Hancock (2008)

!!! WARNING: This review may contain spoilers !!!

Review on the movie Hancock. A action movie based on a drunken superhero.

OVERALL: 6/10

Plot: 6.5/10
Cinematography: 4/10
Entertainment value: 7/10
Number of times I looked at my watch: 1
Movie to wait for DVD: Yes
Rewatchability: No
Movie to purchase: No

Take superman… minus the laser vision, xray vision and super hearing, add some booze and there you have it, Hancock. I’ll give it that it’s not the typical superhero movie, and there was a lot to be said about the concept. It was a fun movie until about half way through when it became completely unhomogenous and cheesy. This movie had great potential to be excellent, but somehow it seems that they had a ‘fly-off-the-seat-of-the-pants’ random cutting which made the movie uneasy to watch (possibly some pre-production public consenus? Maybe it was the PG13 rating?). Worse of all, the movie was choppy and the cinematography was shakey which makes no sense in that this was meant to be a blockbuster multimedia hit. The flying scenes when Hancock was in air flying around town was just terribly done (cheap? inexperience?). Maybe the film ran out of money? I’m not sure what the excuse was on that note.

It wasn’t all bad, though. The movie did have it’s humourous parts in it and the premise of the movie and the tale it was trying to capture did turn out in the end. The plot could have been more developed but overall, it was still watchable and the entertainment value was quite good. This is one of those fun movies after a long day at work and all you want to do is watch something completely brainless would be a good choice.

Hancock is a drunken superhero who uses his abilities to fight crime and saves lives, but upon attempting to be a protagonist, he ends up becoming the root of all major costs in the city (destroying property, people that he encounters). He crosses paths with a big hearted PR professional, Ray, whom he saves from almost being runover by a train. Ray believes that he can change how Hancock is viewed in the city by working on his people skills and changing his mindset on why he uses booze as an escape mechanism. He was not a believer and didn’t think Ray could help the city respect him. As Hancock transforms himself to be a better man, he’s sees that having respect was becoming more important to him and makes his efforts to change how he looks at life. The chief of police asks him to return to the city to help whereby he where’s a superhero outfit, shaves and is ready for fight crime for the greater good.

The storyline really starts to get very odd when he finds out he has a better half. Great drama becomes of this and from here, my expectations started to dwindle at a rapid pace. At this point, recovery from the movie was almost impossible.

Admittedly, the acting was quite decent, Ray (Jason Bateman) is great as usual and for the most part stole the show, Will Smith, no matter which movie seems to be able to entertain regardless. Theron is gorgeous in the movie and has a lovely touch to the sensitive and tender parts of the movie. Shame about the last half of the movie. I certainly would have rathered left for a rental instead.