more trouble for the superheroes

Rating: 6/10 (19 September 2009)

One cannot say that the superheroes genre does not renew itself lately. We have seen Batman and Spiderman and the rest of the crowd as kids, teenagers, falling in love, losing and regaining their power, and even starting to look human. On the same line we can place 'Hancock' which starts with the superhero played by Will Smith in a serious moral crisis (I was almost ready to write mid-age crisis, but there is no such thing as mid-age for immortals) that alcohol does not seem to really solve, saving lives but doing too much material damage in the process and losing popularity with the press and public opinion. And then the solutions comes across - PR, how did not he think alone about it - but then the PR man has a beautiful wife, and ... not ... you did not really guess what follows but I will try not to reveal more.
While the first part of the film seems to be pretty standard 'hero-in-trouble' stuff the second half hides some surprises, and the idea was pretty cool. The realization is however too standard, director Peter Berg seems to have relied almost entirely on his two stars - Will Smith and Charlize Theron to deliver the sparkles. They do to a certain extent, but this is not enough to make the film something to remember. Smith and Theron are supported by Jason Bateman, who play the more human element of the triangle, and he looks too routine, even more routine that he is supposed to be.
Maybe this is the problem with Petr Berg's movies. I have seen recently 'The Kingdom', the film he made before 'Hancock'. These two films belong to very different genres, but they do have something in common. They are both action films that pretend to be more than that. Without really being bad films, both of them fail. Berg should maybe try to break the routine and dare more.