Moses at the Movies - Hancock
"Hancock" is all the wrong kinds of stupid. It's got an interesting hook: Will Smith is a hobo superhero named John Hancock. He flies, lifts things many times his size, is impervious to all manner of bodily harm, drinks a lot and sleeps on park benches. Everyone in Los Angeles hates him, because he tends to fuck things up big time in the process of saving the day. It's a decent base to build upon.
Unfortunately, the movie willfully ignores all of the interesting questions raised by his existence. Where did he come from? How old is he? Isn't the federal government (and everyone else) worried about God being an emotionally volatile homeless man? You'd think someone would have done something about this guy by the time the movie begins.
Instead of doing something interesting with the concept, "Hancock" goes for the quick and the easy. It introduces a PR agent character, played by the generally wonderful Jason Bateman. He decides that he'll fix Hancock's image problem by having him voluntarily serve a prison sentence until the police are faced with a Cartoonish Superhero Police Crisis, at which point they'll have no choice but to enlist the help of the now-reformed Will Smith. Said crisis happens (after a scene in prison in which one man's head is forced up another man's ass while the theme from "Sanford and Son" plays), Hancock saves the day, and everyone loves him.
Now that the movie has taken care of his stock character development in the span of about fifty minutes, it decides to start answering those very first questions about Hancock's origins. They are some of the stupidest answers possible. It becomes immediately obvious why the movie waited so long to bother filling in Hancock's back story: none of this shit makes any sense. Here, let's go into spoiler territory.
Jason Bateman's gorgeous wife is played by Charlize Theron. For the first two acts of the movie, she's a trophy wife. Then the third act of the film kicks in, and it turns out that she's actually Hancock's sister. Also: they're sibling gods, destined to return to one another throughout history. Unfortunately, they also become progressively weaker when in each other's presence, which means Hancock is now mortal. Oops!
There's simply no way for this to resolve itself in a not-stupid way, so the movie doesn't even try. It's kind of a bummer. There's a lesson to be learned here, though: if you can't answer the questions that your movie's premise is rooted in within the first five minutes, you're probably not going to be able to answer them 50 minutes later without looking really silly and dumb.
Remember that the next time you make something like this, Movie People. All right? Thanks.
Unfortunately, the movie willfully ignores all of the interesting questions raised by his existence. Where did he come from? How old is he? Isn't the federal government (and everyone else) worried about God being an emotionally volatile homeless man? You'd think someone would have done something about this guy by the time the movie begins.
Instead of doing something interesting with the concept, "Hancock" goes for the quick and the easy. It introduces a PR agent character, played by the generally wonderful Jason Bateman. He decides that he'll fix Hancock's image problem by having him voluntarily serve a prison sentence until the police are faced with a Cartoonish Superhero Police Crisis, at which point they'll have no choice but to enlist the help of the now-reformed Will Smith. Said crisis happens (after a scene in prison in which one man's head is forced up another man's ass while the theme from "Sanford and Son" plays), Hancock saves the day, and everyone loves him.
Now that the movie has taken care of his stock character development in the span of about fifty minutes, it decides to start answering those very first questions about Hancock's origins. They are some of the stupidest answers possible. It becomes immediately obvious why the movie waited so long to bother filling in Hancock's back story: none of this shit makes any sense. Here, let's go into spoiler territory.
Jason Bateman's gorgeous wife is played by Charlize Theron. For the first two acts of the movie, she's a trophy wife. Then the third act of the film kicks in, and it turns out that she's actually Hancock's sister. Also: they're sibling gods, destined to return to one another throughout history. Unfortunately, they also become progressively weaker when in each other's presence, which means Hancock is now mortal. Oops!
There's simply no way for this to resolve itself in a not-stupid way, so the movie doesn't even try. It's kind of a bummer. There's a lesson to be learned here, though: if you can't answer the questions that your movie's premise is rooted in within the first five minutes, you're probably not going to be able to answer them 50 minutes later without looking really silly and dumb.
Remember that the next time you make something like this, Movie People. All right? Thanks.