Buy It Now: Hancock (Single-Disc Unrated Edition)

Dir. Peter Berg

Rating: 5.2  |  0 User Reviews  |  Send to Friend

By Lauren Macaluso

An alcoholic superhero is a hilarious concept. Its a shame that director Peter Burg kills our buzz by turning up the drama quota before the film ever gets to blast off. John Hancock (Will Smith) is not your average superhero: He's mostly drunk, foul-mouthed and short-tempered and damage he inflicts on Los Angeles in his not-so-heroic feats makes him more of a menace than a savior. Being the only one of his of kind is lonely; while Hancock has all of the standard superhero skills on paper -- immortality, invulnerability, flight, super strength -- he lacks the charisma to be loved by the public, and with no memory of his origins he's become somewhat of an existential recluse. Most of the humor in the film comes from Hancock's swearing at old ladies, terrorizing little brats and the forcing of heads up posteriors but the way Smith plays him, for all his pretensions as the stoic anti-hero, he's as vulnerable as a 3-year-old. Hancock is eventually befriended by Jay (Jason Bateman), a family man with his own dreams of saving the world, but whose career in public relations is going just as sour as Hancock's career as superhero. With Ray's coaching, Hancock gets a superhero makeover and tries to establish himself as a responsible citizen. A good set up, to be sure, but it's exactly here that the screenplay, by Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan, seems to have ran out of gas -- or, equally likely, the studio heads decided a full movie about an anti-hero malcontent wasn't going to fly during summer whiz-bang season. Suddenly, there's a convoluted back story between Hancock and Jay's wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), who clearly distrusts him and knows something about his past, and a high-flying duel amidst lightning bolts and tornadoes in downtown L.A., neither of which are convincing or particularly necessary to the story. The tag line suggests the film is not your "average superhero movie," but when we're left with a sappy, happy ending, what was once a promising and amusing concept has digressed into the very thing by which it meant to shine in contrast. 

This single-disc DVD edition also offers the usual assortment of featurettes and commentaries. Nothing highly original, fittingly enough.

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