Summer Movie Suicide Mission No. 16: Hancock

In which one man attempts to view every summer blockbuster for the entire season, regardless of taste, genre, or drunk superheroes.

Let’s talk for a moment about the art of the twist. Not the dance craze, kids. We twisted last summer, and this time we’re not going to twist again. No, I’m talking about the plot twist, that ever mysterious device that can make or break a narrative. In The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects, for example, the twist works as a real art form, elevating an otherwise pedestrian movie to a sublime climax. We remember these films fondly because they messed with our expectations, leaving us wondering about the clues we missed all the way out of the theater. But sometimes (or more often than not, maybe; I don’t have stats on this), a misplaced plot twist can ruin an otherwise pleasurable experience, by trying to deliver a little more than was really necessary.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Hancock, a film that’s thematically creative but underwhelming because it ends up shooting at the wrong target.

Quite essentially, spoilers will follow. If you haven’t seen the movie (and I don’t necessarily recommend that you do), you may not want to indulge the rest of this post.

But if you’re up for it, let’s jump.

Hancock, I thought, was going to be the kind of movie that was completely telegraphed in the trailer: Will Smith, a drunken superhero unpopular with his public, finds a P.R. specialist (Jason Bateman) who gets him on the right track. He does some jail time as retribution for stepping out of line, then gets called upon to save the day.

A little basic, of course. But a perfectly serviceable movie plot, definitely. Especially considering Smith and Bateman are pretty much poured into those roles. Get a script punch up with a few extra jokes in it, and you’ve got a pretty original buddy comedy on your hands.

But the story gets a bit more complicated than that, and not in a good way. The first half of the film proceeds amicably, but the Hancock-saving-the-day part takes place squarely at the midway point. Enter Charlize Theron as Bateman’s wife, who had spent the first half of the movie as Hancock’s chief skeptic. After the mini-climax, we find out why. Theron and Smith have a history, and a long one. Like, centuries long. Though Smith doesn’t remember it due to amnesia he suffered decades ago, he and Theron had comprised one of several pairs of superheroes who had saved humanity throughout history. Only when the pairs get too close together, they lose their powers, and eventually become mortal. Theron and Smith are the only remaining dyad, and have remained superhuman due only to Theron’s persistent avoidance of the protagonist. So Theron has been keeping her powers a secret, but the situation changes when Smith unwittingly reenters her life.

So the rest of the film sees Smith lose and regain his powers a number of times, while the bad guy he thwarted in the first half is nearly successful in sending Hancock to meet his maker. But of course, he isn’t.

How spoiler-y was that?

The moral of the story is this: screwing with the audience’s expectations isn’t always a good thing. The filmmakers set the bar way too high and tripped over their own feet on the way over it. If my summary above reads like a convoluted mess, it’s probably still not much worse than what actually shows up on screen.

The second half is part love triangle, part search for life meaning, a dash of shit blowing up, and no comedy. Like Get Smart, this was an action comedy that’s a bit short on the comedy end, but at least Get Smart didn’t make a blatant grab for a pathos it couldn’t find.

I have a feeling that when Hancock shows up on TV, I’ll sit and watch the first half and have some fun, but the second Theron throws the Fresh Prince through a brick wall, I’m checking out. It’s all downhill from there.

Film: Hancock
Director: Peter Berg
Stars: Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman

Viewing Situation: Weekend matinee, large crowd; digital projection
Rotten Tomatoes Average: 37%
My Grade (Out of 10): 4

Next Up: Journey to the Center of the Earth