Hancock (12A.)
Directed by Peter Berg. 2008.
Starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman, Eddie Marsan, Jae Head. 92 minutes. Out on Blu-ray.
If you’re going to make a film called Hancock you ought to manage at least a half hour that is good. Will Smith is our Hancock, a man who seems to have been thoroughly Sid Jamesed by events. An anti social, wino superhero, his rescue attempts are so thoughtless and cavalier that he ends up widely hated by the people of Los Angeles he is attempting to protect and serve. The film itself is made in its hero's image: misguided, veers around all over the place trying to do good, but ultimately just exasperates.
Smith has been fairly invincible of late, handling every challenge thrown at him with casual aplomb, but he never gets going here. This is simply his worst ever performance. Perhaps someone so relentlessly clean living and positive doesn’t have the resources to play a lowlife who is at home in cheap seedy bars. He just mopes through the film looking perplexed, like the punch drunk boxer he didn’t get to play in Ali.
Michael (Collateral, Miami Vice) Mann is among the eight producers and his mini-me Peter Berg directs. It has that distinctive Mann feel of never being quite sure exactly how much fun you’re supposed to be having – at any moment this big budget version of My Super Ex-Girlfriend, is likely to be bum rushed by the deafening clatter of heavy artillery in a stony face Heat style shoot out.
It’s all over the place. Jason Bateman is very funny on TV in Arrested Development and he gives the same performance here but generates zero rapport with Smith and just ends up irritating. Some of the action sequences and gigantic sight gags are tremendous but most remain good ideas on paper. Oh and the flying sequences remind you of Christopher Reeves Superman film.
It’s been cut down to the bare bone, supplemented with last minute re-shoots, but all without discovering a credible path to get them from the start to the finish. (It also seems to have been edited to ensure it gets a more inclusive certificate.) It doesn’t lack for ideas; the script attempts some ambitious and bold plot twists but fails to pull them off. As a result, by the end the tone has done a complete 180 degree turn and it’s like you’re watching a different movie.
Directed by Peter Berg. 2008.
Starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman, Eddie Marsan, Jae Head. 92 minutes. Out on Blu-ray.
If you’re going to make a film called Hancock you ought to manage at least a half hour that is good. Will Smith is our Hancock, a man who seems to have been thoroughly Sid Jamesed by events. An anti social, wino superhero, his rescue attempts are so thoughtless and cavalier that he ends up widely hated by the people of Los Angeles he is attempting to protect and serve. The film itself is made in its hero's image: misguided, veers around all over the place trying to do good, but ultimately just exasperates.
Smith has been fairly invincible of late, handling every challenge thrown at him with casual aplomb, but he never gets going here. This is simply his worst ever performance. Perhaps someone so relentlessly clean living and positive doesn’t have the resources to play a lowlife who is at home in cheap seedy bars. He just mopes through the film looking perplexed, like the punch drunk boxer he didn’t get to play in Ali.
Michael (Collateral, Miami Vice) Mann is among the eight producers and his mini-me Peter Berg directs. It has that distinctive Mann feel of never being quite sure exactly how much fun you’re supposed to be having – at any moment this big budget version of My Super Ex-Girlfriend, is likely to be bum rushed by the deafening clatter of heavy artillery in a stony face Heat style shoot out.
It’s all over the place. Jason Bateman is very funny on TV in Arrested Development and he gives the same performance here but generates zero rapport with Smith and just ends up irritating. Some of the action sequences and gigantic sight gags are tremendous but most remain good ideas on paper. Oh and the flying sequences remind you of Christopher Reeves Superman film.
It’s been cut down to the bare bone, supplemented with last minute re-shoots, but all without discovering a credible path to get them from the start to the finish. (It also seems to have been edited to ensure it gets a more inclusive certificate.) It doesn’t lack for ideas; the script attempts some ambitious and bold plot twists but fails to pull them off. As a result, by the end the tone has done a complete 180 degree turn and it’s like you’re watching a different movie.
