The return of a Who Asked You Movie Review - Hancock

“Remember with great power, come great responsibility.” We all remember that line from Spiderman right? The theme has been used to drive more than one superhero movie and Will Smith’s newest Fourth of July summer blockbuster is yet another example. In "Hancock", Will Smith plays the least popular, and only, crime fighting super hero in Los Angeles.

As anyone who has seen a trailer or commercial can already tell, Hancock tends to raise the ire of both the police and general population with his destructive, irresponsible, and crass crime fighting style. Right off the bat, Hancock’s first act of crime fighting demonstrates to us why he is seen as doing more harm than good as he destroys multiple police cars, highway signs, and generally causes typical summer mayhem. Hancock then saves Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman still channeling his Arrested Development character) from the dark combination of a freight train and LA traffic. Ray is so grateful to have been saved that he immediately asks for a ride home and then pitches Hancock the idea of using his public relations skills to fix the hero’s faulty image.

That is the story in a nutshell with a few other elements like an evil criminal psychologist, a history of paired immortal heroes, a prison, lots of explosions, and Charlize Theron playing Mrs. Embrey. These items however all feel tacked on and rather superfluous to the film’s point. What is that point? Well, I’m not sure but I think it was to create a new action-oriented comedy for The Fresh Prince to star in. Unfortunately, this comedy just isn’t that funny. To make matters worse, it is guilty of using up all of its funniest moments in the trailers. If you have seen them, you’ve seen about all that you need to.

There were some opportunities here. The decision was made to make a film about an unpopular superhero. Ok fine, but why is he unpopular? The filmmakers could have broken some new ground. Perhaps Smith’s character could have been a spoiled punk in the image of today’s troublemaker sports stars. (What if Superman acted like T.O.?) Maybe Hancock could have been a vapid Hollywood type. (Miley Cyrus with super strength, help us all.) Instead, Peter Berg falls back on the same old tale of a hero with a tortured psyche and an inability to find a place in his world. Maybe we shouldn’t expect too much from the man who brought us “Very Bad Things” and “The Rundown”.

I have found Bateman to be very funny on a number of occasions but in Hancock he does not seem to able to carry the comedy the way I think it was intended. Many of his lines fall flat early on and he received little help from the gruff Hancock who is mostly in straight-man mode. Theron is great once they give her something to do but for the first half of the movie she pretty well just stands around. Her character’s actions during the film’s final act are supposed to drive the story but they are rushed and poorly explained. Smith does his best here, but even his charisma is not enough to save the day.