My Hancock Ramblings
Hey there, guys:
I have a fever at the moment, so if this post doesn't make much sense, please bear with me (or poke me with meds, it's all good).
Well, my wife's friend ended up with some extra tickets to see an early showing of Hancock, and being the Will Smith fan that I am, I struggled out of the house to go (I'd previously been curled up in a ball of flu-induced whimpering). Since my last review with Will got some dubious takes, let me state it officially on the record: I love him to death. He is fucking sex personified, and I think I'd like any movie he was in -- he wouldn't even have to do anything. If he was on the screen, even if he was just playing tetris or something, I'd love it.
There. Now that that's out of the way, onto the review:
Summary: Hancock is an alcoholic superhero, who can't seem to do anything right. Eighty years ago, he woke up from a cracked skull with superhero powers, and hasn't been able to fit in since.
Well, he saves this PR Rep's life, and the guy wants to do him a favor. Against the advice of his wife, he decides to help Hancock reshape his life. This involves going to jail, taking anger management classes, and getting "superhero" tips from the PR Guy (who has a name, I'm just to sick to remember it. Ray, I think).
After Hancock gets out of jail and gets fans, he ends up also hitting on PR Guy's wife, Mary. It turns out, after lots of action sequences, that Mary's also a superhero, that they're both really immortal gods. Here we get an info-dump explaining how the heros come in pairs -- and whenever the pairs are together, they lose their powers.
Well, speak of the devil. Because Hancock goes to save the day, and gets shot (the bullets don't bounce off of him, unlike earlier). He's rushed to the ER, where there's a scene between the PR Guy being bummed that his wife was once married to Hancock, and the wife chatting about their unaging love. Someone comes in to shoot the place up, and, since Mary and Hancock are together, they both lose their powers and almost die.
Inexplicably, Hancock doesn't die (there's some mention earlier thatt Hancock is the fail-safe of the gods, the guardians of humans, but I'm not sure if that's relevent, or if they just didn't want the audience to hate them). John manages to wake up, and get far enough away from the hospital (and his 'pair-mate') to bring Mary back to life.
Mary goes back to her life with PR Guy, and John ends up moving to New York to save people. The End. ^^;;
My Comments: The effects are damnably cheesy. Especially when Hancock was flying drunk -- actually, the flying scenes were the worst. The rest wasn't half-bad.
I think the areas where this movie starts to kick-ass are when John's saving people. He's a moron in the beginning, saving people by tearing up roads, destroying cars and trains, and insulting/attacking/pushing small children. And then, after he gets rehabilitated, the best part is when he suddenly goes PC and starts telling everyone "good job."
After that, the plot and info-dumping kicks in. Which, for me, was fine. I really liked the set-up of the universe. When I got out of the film, I was like -- fan fiction time! Except that the movie's not out yet, so I can't find any comms for that sort of thing. ^^;;
Was it the best film ever? Nope. Was it fun, with an interesting universe? Yep! It probably wouldn't appeal to those who didn't enjoy "straight" superhero flicks -- but for those of us who did, it's definitely something to see -- if only to watch Hancock push kids out of the way, half-nude, so that he can get the last Nutter Butter bar.^^;;
* Okay, the asshole thing is a big joke in the film. Hancock gets called an "asshole" all the time, and he always loses his cool when it happens.
_Morgs_
I have a fever at the moment, so if this post doesn't make much sense, please bear with me (or poke me with meds, it's all good).
Well, my wife's friend ended up with some extra tickets to see an early showing of Hancock, and being the Will Smith fan that I am, I struggled out of the house to go (I'd previously been curled up in a ball of flu-induced whimpering). Since my last review with Will got some dubious takes, let me state it officially on the record: I love him to death. He is fucking sex personified, and I think I'd like any movie he was in -- he wouldn't even have to do anything. If he was on the screen, even if he was just playing tetris or something, I'd love it.
There. Now that that's out of the way, onto the review:
Summary: Hancock is an alcoholic superhero, who can't seem to do anything right. Eighty years ago, he woke up from a cracked skull with superhero powers, and hasn't been able to fit in since.
Well, he saves this PR Rep's life, and the guy wants to do him a favor. Against the advice of his wife, he decides to help Hancock reshape his life. This involves going to jail, taking anger management classes, and getting "superhero" tips from the PR Guy (who has a name, I'm just to sick to remember it. Ray, I think).
After Hancock gets out of jail and gets fans, he ends up also hitting on PR Guy's wife, Mary. It turns out, after lots of action sequences, that Mary's also a superhero, that they're both really immortal gods. Here we get an info-dump explaining how the heros come in pairs -- and whenever the pairs are together, they lose their powers.
Well, speak of the devil. Because Hancock goes to save the day, and gets shot (the bullets don't bounce off of him, unlike earlier). He's rushed to the ER, where there's a scene between the PR Guy being bummed that his wife was once married to Hancock, and the wife chatting about their unaging love. Someone comes in to shoot the place up, and, since Mary and Hancock are together, they both lose their powers and almost die.
Inexplicably, Hancock doesn't die (there's some mention earlier thatt Hancock is the fail-safe of the gods, the guardians of humans, but I'm not sure if that's relevent, or if they just didn't want the audience to hate them). John manages to wake up, and get far enough away from the hospital (and his 'pair-mate') to bring Mary back to life.
Mary goes back to her life with PR Guy, and John ends up moving to New York to save people. The End. ^^;;
My Comments: The effects are damnably cheesy. Especially when Hancock was flying drunk -- actually, the flying scenes were the worst. The rest wasn't half-bad.
I think the areas where this movie starts to kick-ass are when John's saving people. He's a moron in the beginning, saving people by tearing up roads, destroying cars and trains, and insulting/attacking/pushing small children. And then, after he gets rehabilitated, the best part is when he suddenly goes PC and starts telling everyone "good job."
After that, the plot and info-dumping kicks in. Which, for me, was fine. I really liked the set-up of the universe. When I got out of the film, I was like -- fan fiction time! Except that the movie's not out yet, so I can't find any comms for that sort of thing. ^^;;
Was it the best film ever? Nope. Was it fun, with an interesting universe? Yep! It probably wouldn't appeal to those who didn't enjoy "straight" superhero flicks -- but for those of us who did, it's definitely something to see -- if only to watch Hancock push kids out of the way, half-nude, so that he can get the last Nutter Butter bar.^^;;
* Okay, the asshole thing is a big joke in the film. Hancock gets called an "asshole" all the time, and he always loses his cool when it happens.
_Morgs_