Review: Hancock

* * * 1/2

Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman. Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan. Directed by Peter Berg. Rated PG-13. 92 minutes. Sony Pictures Releasing.

The hollowing of the Hollywood blockbuster has been evident this season with but a few exceptions: Iron Man got by on Robert Downey Jr.’s comic timing, Indiana Jones coasted on nostalgia and Wanted efficiently exploded in our faces—and that wasn’t a bad thing. Now comes a mysterious, original and satisfying big-budget movie, riding a wave of tremendously bad—and unwarranted—buzz, intriguing right up to its final scene. Likely to be dismissed by critics and audiences, the quirky picture has significant rewards.

The film is Hancock, the tale of a reluctant superhero plagued by demons of alcoholism and loneliness who undergoes a public image makeover before finding an unexpected soul mate. It is a super anti-hero picture rendered in rude, satiric, heartfelt and scary tones, and features a trio of terrific star turns driving an unpredictable, adult fantasy.

Potty-mouthed, vagabond drunk Hancock (Will Smith) is less the savior of Los Angeles than its public enemy. Impervious to pain, possessing great strength and the ability to fly, the film opens as he dispatches a car full of thugs by destroying the LA freeway, dismantling a fleet of cops and spearing the bad guys atop the Capitol Records spire.

His latest destructive wake leaves him wanted by the LAPD, while draconian Nancy Grace wants him behind bars. Don’t drink and fly is the motto, and the film has fun with the sight of a blitzed Smith carousing the skies, swigging hard liquor as a human weapon of mass destruction.

We learn that Hancock’s origins and powers are a mystery to him. After waking up in a Miami hospital 80 years ago where “nobody claimed me,” the ageless wonder shacks up in a seaside trailer, passes out on city benches and pretty much would prefer to be left alone. More often than not, he’s chastised into aiding law enforcement.

Notorious for tossing a beached whale into the sea only to capsize a yacht in the process and semi-naked stupors broadcast on YouTube, Hancock’s life changes when he saves socially conscious ad exec Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) from a speeding train. The problem? He causes even more destruction when the train cars jump the track, leading to a very funny confrontation between Hancock and his unappreciative public.

Ray is so indebted to Hancock that he sees the apathetic superman as a pet project, orchestrating a PR campaign to turn around Hancock’s tarnished image. This is no mean feat, as Hancock is so coarse and politically incorrect that he addresses gentle senior citizens with remarks like, “What the hell are you looking at, pricks?” He also launches an adolescent bully into space, giving the lad the scare of his life.

Ray holds a press conference, forces Hancock off booze and into jail to make good, gets him to shave and even supplies a rubbery superhero suit, in a very funny genre lampoon. He also insists that Hancock address the cops with a mantra of “good job” at every possible juncture. This new bro-mance is met with apprehension and distance by Ray’s standoffish wife Mary (Charlize Theron), determined to protect Ray’s young son Aaron (Jae Head) from Hancock’s negative influence.

So far, a movie about an unrepentant slug who just happens to have super powers, has turned into a movie about a troubled guy cleaning up his game. With Hancock in the pen, crime inevitably hits an all time high. Not only must he face down the bad guys he jailed who now share his home turf—resulting in the film’s most vulgar and uproarious laugh—the LA streets surge with violence.

Stop reading now if you wish to avoid critical plot revelations.

To our surprise, it turns out that Mary also secretly possesses super powers, and has been linked to Hancock for centuries, the last remaining “insurance policy of the gods.” They de-magnetize each other in a way, losing their powers if in close proximity. Soon Hancock begins to understand what being a mortal is, and the film delves deeper into his abandonment issues. Both actors deliver appealing chemistry in humorous scenes, such as one very clever physical altercation in a kitchen, staged in close proximity to an oblivious Ray.

In a roundabout way, it turns out that they love each other, but they just can’t live together. The film fudges their soul-mate connection, defining them as husband and wife, brother and sister, in love and in hate. However you cut it, the message is clear—find your other half, and you’ll likely still kill each other anyway. Love hurts.

Apparently plagued by re-shoots and edits, the $150 million Hancock is an untidy picture to be sure. It is also emotionally absorbing—odd to think of for a picture like this—shoehorning its likeable people into the superhero movie structure then flipping it on its head. In a bloated genre that frequently inflates running times with psychological pathos, Hancock’s trim 92 minutes feels rushed and sometimes incomplete, but the film nevertheless compels.

Former actor and Hancock director Peter Berg (The Kingdom) obviously cares less for the action set pieces than the humans, mounting the film’s few scenes of destruction with deliberate, rapid artifice. Instead, he zeroes in on three flawed people caught in a funny and troubling situation, using extreme close-up to great effect. As Hancock, sharing a dinner out with the Embreys, conveys the tolls of his unresolved past, the camera squeezes tightly on reactions. Tears well between Theron and Smith, and suddenly the movie—and we—forget this is supposed to be an action comedy blockbuster. Ditto a climactic hospital scene featuring an emotional exchange and some odd, frightening imagery.

I appreciated Hancock’s themes—finding someone who believes in you, a place and meaning in the world and understanding the fragility of life. That’s a heady mix for a summer movie starring Will Smith, and the screenplay, by Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan, eschews the usual superhero tropes, dispensing with Hancock’s origins, eliminating any central villain and keeping the film’s climactic action in check.

Smith is superb here after his celebrated—and somewhat pushy—turn in last year’s I Am Legend, where he worked his signature bravado overtime. Here he keeps it in check, delivering acidic attitude with appealing understatement and some grace notes of a lost soul. Never showing off, he’s aware that he is balancing an ensemble. Charming Bateman plays the straight man here, yet even the way he handles his discoveries about his wife feel fresh.

Best of all is Theron, holding Mary’s secrets close and looking unbelievably radiant in the film’s second half. After her grittily effective turns in Monster, North Country and In the Valley of Elah—films where she plumbed neuroses, despair, sexism and the establishment—she cuts right to the heart of what could have been a one-note forgettable comedic role, the type in which she so often found herself cast prior to her Oscar win.

While some may find this imperfect movie messy, Hancock’s deliberate emotional hard edges grabbed me and the picture left me wanting more. Just how often does that happen with American summer movies?

Recommended.

- Lee Shoquist

lee@atnzone.com