Superhero Action Comedy

Rating: 8/10 (11 October 2009)

Parody films have got such a bad reputation because of the horrible work of the Wayans Family and Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer partnership, that it is refreshing to see a film at least make an effort, with an original films, and not coping the best bits from other films and play them for comedy, poorly.
Hancock tells the story John Hancock (Will Smith), the last of his kind and has powers similar to Superman. He has super-strength, the ability to fly and indestructible. He is also a raging alcoholic, causes millions of dollars of damage and hated by the people of Los Andreas. He is pretty much a tramp and hates what he does. However, he saves the life of Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), an PR executive, and offers his services to improve Hancock's reputation. He get him to service time in prison and show how important he is to the city and more importantly, make him care about saving people. But Ray's wife Mary (Charlize Theron) does not truth or even like Hancock, and want the family to move away from him as quickly as possible.
I could easily picture the pitch meeting, 'Superman as an alcoholic': that is the concept. It works for the most part, with some superhero scenes played for laughs, like Hancock flying drunk and clashing into road signs on the freeway and the world acknowledges that he causes a lot of destruction compared to Superman, Spiderman, Batman, etc... There is a lot of physical comedy, but the best bit of comedy is playing on superhero conventions, like when Hancock saves Ray, and he ends up arguing with citizens. Will Smith is a good comedic performer, but he play his role pretty seriously as well. This was clearly his vehicle. He was offered the chance to play Superman, but he refused because he didn't want to break racial lines, he made the right decision. I think an original superhero was the best option for Will Smith, giving him and all that was involved in the film a lot more freedom. The other actors in the film were perfectly find, Charlize Theron was good, and I personally thought she would have been a great choice to play Emma Frost in X-Men.
Peter Berg direction is still a little unsure: this is his first blockbuster film. Some moments didn't quite work, and the CGI could have been better. But the action is solid, and has a good future in-front of him. He has Michael Mann as a backer and producer so he must have something. As well as playing against superhero conventions, Berg also does pay some homage to superhero films, like Superman, i.e. the music, and X-Men, the costume.
Some critics complain about the film had a good idea and then the producers forced more action scenes to the film. But this is an action comedy, and the best action comedies have good action scenes, like Hot Fuzz. My criticisms are that film is a little too short, that there is a lack of a major villains and that they should have been more comedy, especially verbal gags. The film should have also stuck to it's convictions, and gone for an R/15 rating, instead of watering it down for a PG-13.
A perfectly worthy film, a decent blockbuster.