This Blog is an outlet for the random thoughts of an amateur opinionator.
What's an opinionator?
An opinionator is somebody who has power without responsibility, and the ability to spout off on any subject without worrying too much about the consequences of what comes out of the mouth. All you need is an opinion and the opportunity to voice it.
TV is full of professional opinionators. The internet gives the amateur his chance.
> hancoCk behaVed badLy
Author: aLmich
Jc, Kiko and I had a great time out last Saturday. We went to Sea Side [aka Dampa] near Mall of Asia for a “full” dinner and then proceeded to MOA to watch Hancock. [Dampa post will be after this]
Hancock was a bit of a surprise. It’s a story about a superhero who’s down on his luck and is looking for redemption. It was a genuinely funny movie that only descended into cornball cheese a couple of times. I knew nothing about the story before I went to the movie, so there were a couple of very unexpected bits.
It’s not the best story in the world, but it works pretty well for a dumbass blockbuster movie.
Hancock is very much in the spirit of Iron Man, from earlier this summer. Our hero is an anti-hero… drunk, smug, angry, selfish, and powerful. But unlike Tony Stark, his story starts to turn not when he is beaten into a change of perspective but because there is something going on inside of him that is clearly aware of an ambivalence about his behavior. Even as he “saves the day” and screws up massively in the process, causing tens of millions in damage as he “helps,” one gets the feeling in the audience that he is a bit of a fuck-up, but also a bit willful about being lazy and missing the mark, like a teenager who has grown into the body of an adult but who hasn’t gotten over the itchy need to show everyone that now “I am a man!”
Just thinking about one of Hancock’s destructive take-offs [destroying a bus bench and leaving a massive hole in the cement it was screwed into] or landings [leaving car-sized holes in streets]… can anyone who has dealt with a brooding teen male be unable to imagine that kid taking off and landing exactly like that. “Stop playing with the X-Box and save that damned busload of children!” “Damn it! Why are you always interrupting me before I get to the next level!” SLAMMM… through the roof… another destroyed TV set…
Truth is, one of the things I missed in the movie was any real effort by Hancock when he felt even a little bad about breaking stuff to put it back together. You know, kick all the rubble back in the hole… pick up some of the debris… something like that. But like most teenagers, they will leave stuff just anyway… out of sight, out of mind.
The transition for Hancock begins when he saves one man, Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), who is a PR man who is not very good at his job. It turns out that in spite of the business he has chosen, he actually wants to save the world, not just convince people that he does. As a result, Hancock immediately becomes his new project, a super-lost-puppy into whom Ray feels he has insight.
Ray brings Hancock home… or vice versa… and so begins the Henry Higgins-ing of the hard-edged, super-powered Eliza Doolittle. There is an immediate comfort between Ray’s young son and Hancock. Just as immediately, it is clear that Ray’s wife, Mary, is not comfortable with this guy in her house. Hiring Charlize Theron to play “The Wife” is a bit like watching and episode of Law & Order and seeing a familiar face from TV or stage wander in and out of the first act while the cops have the story all wrong. You’re really trying to figure out what she is doing there.
The story continues… Hancock agrees to be incarcerated as Ray plots to turn his image, really selling Hancock on getting past the pain of being disliked for all his “save the day” heroics. Again, this is kind of a classic dramatic idea… very My Bodyguard, as the little kid not only gets protected, but finds the heart of the not-so-gentle giant in the process.
The thing that is so compelling about Hancock through this part of the film is that Hancock has the feel of “one of us” given these kinds of powers… and that part has been pretty much universally praised as being entertaining as hell. Ironically, the “I am alone here” speech you’ve seen in the marketing materials is part of a somewhat cynical, prepped speech before he goes into jail. But Will Smith’s performance makes it clear that he is reading a speech… and actually believing it… almost freed to feel by the artificial nature of what he has been given to read.
It is a key element to this whole movie that Ray is right about Hancock, from start to finish. He sees what no one else really can. It is his love, which is oddly free of judgment – even when he is criticizing – that moves Hancock towards his better self. And this becomes the theme of the entire film… the power of love and the power of self-sacrifice and self-awareness.
Another interesting element is the anticipation of what Hancock will actually do when he is “saving the day.” His choices are often unexpected, even to himself. And they are often emotionally driven. His mood has a lot to do with how he makes choices. And faced with a life in which apparent consequences are solely how others see you and how you see yourself, the choice not to indulge himself endlessly is an issue of nothing but his increasing maturity.
I really enjoyed the first half of the movie but a sudden twist of the story destroyed it all.
When the story soon exposed Ray Embrey’s wife’s true character, I started to feel that something is getting so wrong. I just think that it didn’t fit. I was expecting more of Hancock and how he can be a better hero. I expected more of him pursuing what Ray Embrey has started. I would have appreciated if some villains from another planet came in and Hancock defended the world.
I don’t know. I guess I’ll leave it to you guys to decide.
