A new race

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2011)

It's not so difficult to realize, on a first glance, the intentions "Hancock" has as a motion picture. It has Will Smith in the lead role and as a producer; it's an action picture with a lot of adrenaline and visual effects; it's, and this is never a little fact, a superhero movie. This said, it's also easy, with one look, to notice that the film presents a turn on the typical superhero plot development. We've got to be fair: the script by Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan is original and character driven, but "Hancock" is not the first recent film that tries to bring something different to the superhero table; animation plays with the concept of superheroes all the time, and this will continue to happen. However, when it comes to live action and in an era of mature "Spider/Iron/Super/Bat Man", "Hulk" tales (which never lack sense of humor), John Hancock represents a new race. Precisely because he didn't came from a comic book and because his story doesn't necessarily emulates the steps of the other stories, this is also a race of superhero film we won't see very often.
Always comic but never a parody, "Hancock" presents us a man with powers, who fights crime and saves lives but has recently lost his popularity. We look at him and we sense something profound in his eyes. He's not a millionaire, or a doctor, or a lawyer He's just a man, an immortal human being with a lot of strength who drinks all the time and isn't able to do his job right. But is this his job? We don't know anything about Hancock, but Smith never plays him with a pose: too smart, too cocky, too serious, or too drunk for that matter. There's a short sequence, with beautiful music by John Powell, in which we see Hancock by himself. He's not comfortable with who he is, and it's never the film intention to mock him, even when everyone keeps calling him an 'asshole'.
Therefore, on a second glance, it's once again easy to perceive that story and characters mean more to Peter Berg than the bad guys Hancock has to fight (or what I call 'events'). There are a few action sequences, but they are not necessarily impressive. It seems to me it's always more about what Hancock will do, for him, in each case, than the shock the audience will receive, visually and in terms of sound. At the same time, there's a more detailed construction in the conversational scenes. Missing elements and unsaid things in the dialog combined with strong looks on one hand; unexplained warnings on the other. Of course, this is not entirely serious or dramatic, but it's obvious and transparent. Always comic, the movie has silly musical montages and there are comic touches in a lot of situations but the actors are –when it comes to drama- well directed, focused (specially Jason Bateman); and if I don't tell you anything else is because there's a story worth watching and the way things unfold is natural and not at all definitive. Also, even though it's a short ride, when it's over it's not like there was a big case closed, a mystery solved or a lot of people saved in an event. There's just life, with its (sad) comings and goings, and we want to know more about the people whose lives we've witnessed for a while.
Everything in the film is, nevertheless, completely entertaining, given the fact that Will Smith is a winning actor who understands what the audience wants, in any genre he's doing; and because Charlize Theron is beautiful and we can't take our eyes off of her. I saw in "Hancock" other things, specific elements I chose not to mention that made this for me a different, enriching experience. The elements are there. You can think of them as part of an uninteresting whole or you can give them more credit. Anyway, is as The Dire says: when there's a good story