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Film: Hancock

Hancock is, in a way, the polar opposite of WALL-E. The critics loved WALL-E, hated Hancock. Both Dirty Harry and Kyle Smith were mediocre on WALL-E and liked Hancock. I was frustrated by much of WALL-E and bought into Hancock completely.

That’s partly because I like a good superhero film. (I am so on the edge of my seat in anticipation of The Dark Knight.) Hancock is a superhero film with a few twists, most of which I can't discuss because that would be major spoilerage. (Yeah, yeah, I spoiled away with WALL-E, but really, did it matter?)

The twist to the superhero genre I can discuss is the one on display in the previews: Hancock is an alcoholic disaster of a superhero.

That concept alone would probably have been enough to get me into the theatre, but it has the added bonus of being portrayed by the mighty Will Smith. On the Fourth of July I naturally watched Independence Day. It’s amazing how far he’s come since then, and back then he was damn good. Sure, much of what Smith does in Hancock is Will Smith being Will Smith, but when you’re this smooth, cool, and good, does that really matter? Much (most? all?) of the time when George Clooney is on the screen he’s just being George Clooney, and that sucks. It does not suck when Smith is being Smith.

Hancock, our drunken superhero, is a living, breathing example of destroying the village in order to save it. In the film’s opening bit of “heroics”, he destroys much of a freeway, more than a few police cars, and leaves the villains and their SUV atop a skyscraper, incurring even more costs to get them down. In another bit, when a car is trapped sitting across the railroad tracks, rather than simply pick the car up and move it, he tosses it onto over cars and lets the train hit him, causing a massive derailment and even more damage.

The problem for the city of Los Angeles, of course, is that Hancock is invulnerable, has super strength, and can fly. How can they arrest him? How can they contain him? So while he violates an endless string of laws, and as hundreds of civil suits stacked up against him, he’s pretty much untouchable.

This is a brilliant setup and the film probably could have run this way for its entire length (a trim and taut 92 minutes, a blessing in an age where every film is treated to an epic length). Not content with that, though, the filmmakers kick the film in a wholly unexpected direction, one that deepens Hancock’s character, creates plausible (within the film’s universe) relationships and conflicts, and lets the film build toward a tremendous finale.

Unlike, say, WALL-E, Hancock is all plot. Events that happen to not apply directly to plot are there to establish character points or relationships. And unlike a slew of other films that have polluted theatres lately, Hancock embraces the concept of self-sacrifice. Kyle Smith also believes that Hancock, the superhero, is in fact a witty defense of United States.

I’ll let you read his reasoning, but suffice to say here that I agree.

Contrary to what most MSM critics are saying, Hancock is great fun and well worth your time, especially if you’d like to see a new spin on the superhero.

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