Upping the Ante on Anti-Heroes

Rating: 7/10 (13 July 2008)

Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's HANCOCK?! (Will Smith) Endowed with all the powers of Superman, *sans* the gay Mardi Gras jockstrap. Fighting for Truth and Justice with a massive puss on his face.
HANCOCK is a "superhero movie" only on its surface. Deeper, where emotions are torn from desires and sorrow abides like ravenous bile, HANCOCK is a misunderstood gem; an insidiously brilliant take on the pitfalls of superherodom.
All humor stems from tragedy and HANCOCK is a Greek tragedy for the comicbook generation, using the superhero idiom as a launching pad for its exploration of isolation and the cavernous ache of loneliness.
The tragic figure is introduced as comic  movie opens with Hancock foiling a bank robbery by planting a getaway car on the spike of the Capitol Records building in LA, after some of the best flying and destruction scenes ever staged in CG technology.
We learn that Hancock is "the only one of his kind"; once a regular human, one day waking in a hospital with a fractured skull, no memories of his past - and super powers. With a tragic lament, "What kind of bastard must I have been for nobody to have claimed me?" In his pocket, two tickets to the movie FRANKENSTEIN. That was eighty years ago now he walks the lonely Earth, ageless, directionless, with no one to relate to, who can comprehend the ramifications of his powers or immortality.
Smith plays Hancock's melancholy note-perfect, in one of the best performances of his career. He never takes the self-pity so far that we dislike Hancock, yet his plight is permanently etched into his demeanor. How can he forget for one second his alienation amongst the throng? Yes, it's funny at first: modern Los Angeles vilifies Hancock at every turn for the wholesale destruction that accompanies his heroic deeds; flying drunk with a bottle of wine; hurling a beached whale back to sea that hits a yacht; putting out a fire, then pushing in front of kids for an ice cream to cool down while half-naked; destroying property insouciantly during landings and takeoffs. The satire works because we are so inculcated with superhero lore - yet we don't see Hancock's tragedy for the same reason: our inculcation erroneously informs us the dark aspects of a superhero's life can't get any worse than the Death-Of-Parents or some X-Factor-Creating-Implausible-Powers. We never stop to consider it from the *hero's* point of view.
All superheroes are alienated (from SUPERMAN to SPIDERMAN and all the X's in between) but with HANCOCK, the movie-makers plant themselves square in his stinky shoes and ask "How would *I* feel?" You can't die, yet you can't really "live." You are basically moral, so you prevent some evildoing, yet whenever you act, there is puling over the damage rather than thanks for the deed. But that is the price of super deeds  not pretty or cheap, but monumental repercussions. So you drink. You remain disheveled, you disregard all manners and protocol  why care? No one can harm you. If you care for no one and no one cares for you, they can't even get to you through someone else. Can anyone blame you for the puss on your face? Smith is all over this character like stank on his beanie.
A plot emerges when Hancock saves the life of a publicist stuck on a railway crossing, Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman, as dry as a Bond martini). While most onlookers condemn Hancock for not "flying straight up" instead of dumping Embrey upside down on another car, Embrey is so thankful, he offers to PR Hancock's image.
"Don't come in too hot; don't come in too boozyTell the cops they're doing a good job." Embrey suggests jail time - a totally laughable proposition for this man who can fly and stop bullets, yet which would serve as a gesture he is sincere in improving his social persona.
When Hancock meets Embrey's wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), something sparks and the two engage in Meaningful Looks in every scene  we soon discover Mary is a superhero too! Hold your Roald Dahl-horses: this is not a "twist," this is the Greek tragedy kicking in.
Mary explains: both she and Hancock are the last of "angels, gods, now they call us superheroes" and The Rules Sez if they pair up, they do the HIGHLANDER and become mortal. For 3000 years their kind walked the Earth, diminishing as they coupled and died. (I'll refrain from the obvious gag about women killing you slowly once you commit.) Now she and Hancock have run into each other again and must make a life-decision The public miss Hancock soon enough and he is summoned from jail to foil a hostage situation, arriving in a blast of Superman fanfare, clean-shaven, in brand spanking homo superhero duds (courtesy of Embrey), looking like Wolverine. Hancock's makeover a success, the movie skews from slapstick towards its dramatic climax.
Many complain over The Villain (Eddie Marsan) being vapid. True. He is only a plot tool to spur Hancock into making a fateful decision on his immortal beloved. When Hancock is shot during a robbery and hospitalized to save his life, he realizes he has been around Mary too long  Mortality was bearing down on him - and The Villain is not the focus in the final scenes - it is whether Hancock will choose life or death. To die, having loved only a few hours in recent memory, or to live loveless forever.
No matter the decision, he loses. And this, faithful superhero fan who walked into the wrong movie, is the complex funny intriguing tragic conundrum of HANCOCK.
And we wonder why he's got that puss on his face. Now get that puss off yours...