Hancock
(Peter Berg):
Will Smith, Charliz Theron, Jason Bateman, Eddie Marsan.
Running time: 92 minutes
I’m sick to the cape of under-powered superhero movies. Hancock, though unbalanced, gets kudos for trying to rattle the formula. Will Smith, he of perennial cheer, goes bad-ass, with the same reek of self-consciousness you notice when Tom Cruise does similar.
Smith’s Hancock is a jerk: an alcoholic superhero who won’t wear a suit, curses liberally, and flies like a drunk driver. He throws a kid into space for calling him an asshole and the city wants him locked up owing to his vast collateral damage. What he needs is PR, provided by Jason Bateman’s dull but patient Ray, while his wife (Charlize Theron) glowers silently.
Director Peter Berg films the story with an affected documentary rawness: slippy zooms and camera shake. It helps to strip it of the superhero gloss and put a little earth in the tale. There’s a very amusing twist, which allows Theron to step forward and shine. And there is plenty of fun, though the film’s laughs don’t shake you.
For all that it seeks to avoid, it resorts to an underpowered superhero finale. Eddie Marsan’s bad guy is unsatisfactory and underwritten, as if the producers insisted at the last minute in getting things their own way.
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