..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Week Seven 2008
Hancock Unmasked
(Spoiler Review)

For those who are quick to call Hancock “a mess” or the third act “a huge left turn” or Variety's hypetastic "Last Action Hero-like" or whatever euphemism they are using this time, I offer this very serious suggestion… see the movie again.  If they still don’t see how well the tapestry is woven, I will leave them to their myopia.

It was a fascinating experience for me, going back to the film.  Not only did the sense of any confusion fall away – and I indicated as soon as I saw it that I felt the “twist” was signaled clearly, though without detail, from early on with a spin move around Mary and particularly in a speech that seems to be going way overboard about blood and breaking things – but my appreciation for the entire film increased substantively.  Not only did I like the film even more, but I genuinely felt the film moved beyond the “ambitious but flawed” category into the realm of excellence. 

The most interesting thing to me – and writing my non-spoiler review might have sharpened my perspective going in – was how very much like the other superhero movies of this summer and others this apparently upsetting third act “twist” really is. 

All summer long, I have noted that the two Marvel movies had taken the unusual step of doing in these “first” movies what most other comic franchises have waited until the second film to unveil, The Bigger Suit.  And indeed, Charlize Theron in Hancock is this movie’s Bigger Suit.  Of course, her role in the story is far more complex than “a bad guy” putting on a bigger suit in Iron Man or becoming a bigger abomination in The Incredible Hulk.  Here, along with The Bigger Suit comes The Real Origin, which as an audience, we think we have already achieved by the end of the first two acts.  And maybe that is the basis for some of what reads like real resentment.

The discussion of what the relationship between “Hancock” and “Mary” is and what it means is one that, if in other movies, would inspire a lot of interesting conversation.  The idea that the person that fate makes your natural mate can also be a source of weakness, even destruction, is right out of Shakespeare and Greek tragedy.  And the maturity to see past instinct/fate and to make healthy choices is not only in the film, but a recurring theme of the film.

As I wrote in the non-spoiler review, Hancock is a petulant child in many ways, acting out because of his pain, reluctant to embrace or unable to understand his real power.  (There is a very smart beat when Hancock quietly evesdrops on the Embreys' roof... showing he can be quiet, but usually chooses not to be.)

The road to maturity is love, which is embodied by Jason Bateman’s Ray Embrey as Hancock’s teacher, whose failed PR work, not coincidentally, has a giant heart for a logo.  Embrey’s wife, Mary, chose this empathic man to spend a quiet part of her life with – presumably her third or fourth relationship in the 8 decades since she last lived a heroic life with Hancock – as he offers the love she seeks without the endless drama of Hancock himself.

When Hancock returns to her, as he apparently always does, she acts like an angry teen girl to his angry teen boy.  Even with a full perspective on her life, she is drawn back into her immaturity by this relationship, though over time, we come to find out that a big part of her choice is about knowing how dangerous her love for Hancock is, both to them as individuals and, potentially, to the earth. 

The location of the fight, over Hollywood, and the lack of explanation of the weather change can be quarreled with. But in the perspective of the entire film, arguing that it is action filler or not logical seems intentionally thick-headed to me.

It’s fair to say that there is not a deep exploration of the issues of the relationship in the film.  But the pieces are there.  The other immortals who were on earth were them are – at least Mary thinks they are, dead – and there isn’t much explanation, though we can project.  If they chose to be together in a mortal life, they may have died of old age.  Some may have been subject to some of the same problems that Hancock and Mary face, attacked when vulnerable by humans seeking revenge or just general rage. 

Another interesting element that isn’t being too widely discussed is the power inequity of men and women immortals.  Mary is the more powerful of the two, apparently in control of nature, which we see turn dramatically as she embraces her rage in a fight with an unknowing Hancock. 

And completely unspoken in the film is the issue of miscegenation, which is clearly there in references to the attack in Miami 80 years earlier. (One of the downsides of the web is that one can get caught over-researching.  It turns out that the was a hurricane in South Florida in 1928 that killed 3000 people and that blacks were, according to one account, forced at gunpoint to collect corpses… in interesting setting for a white weather-starter and a black man by her side.  But Frankenstein would not be released until 1931… so much for that connective theory.)  It’s a fascinating bit of The Moment We Live In that in the Smith and Theron pairing, race is never brought up… all the more so because of her roots in apartheid South Africa.

But back to the central themes: maturity, love, and the nature of power. 

Hancock starts as an immature man-boy, he finally establishes some self-esteem when he is lovingly guided in the ways of using his power in a way that doesn’t anger the well-intended less powerful around him, but he finally comes into his own when he feels the love of his equal (or superior) being. 

It’s interesting how the screenplay uses the power issue aside from Hancock, with the law-breakers.  Some critics have lingered on the supposed illogic of criminals not realizing that Hancock cannot be conquered.  But this is a big part of what the movie is.  He is immature in using his powers and the movie seems clear in saying that people who choose to commit crimes are equally childish in their thinking. 

The first sequence has him flying into a chase, pulling back the top of a car, and sitting down in the backseat.  Still, he feels compelled to emasculate the bad guys even more with words.  And they, in turn, feel compelled to try him out and see whether he – who just flew in – can be overpowered.  He can’t. 

In his second action sequence, he lazily makes bad choices, starting with how he moves Ray Embrey’s car and followed by remaining in the way of the train. 

In his third confrontation, in the jail, he once again uses his power to emasculate, in the most graphic and hard to imagine way, two men who threaten to take his power away… even though he - and you would think, they - is/are fully aware that they cannot.

When he is finally called into action, in the fourth action sequence, he is sober for the first time and uses his powers wisely for the first time, and with precision.  When the main bad guy in that sequence talks about Hancock with the men who shared the head-up-ass experience together, he talks about taking back power, still unable to understand that he cannot – logically, at that time – take power from or match power with Hancock in any way. 

In the sixth action sequence – the fifth being the confrontation with Mary – he pulls one of two armed robbers through a counter and throws him effortlessly through the refrigerator and beyond, at which point the second criminal not only tries to control the situation by holding a gun to the cashier’s head, but actually expects to walk away with the money in the cash drawer (not unlike the eventually one-handed bank robber in the fourth confrontation).  Crazy, on some level.  But the movie is completely consistent with this idea.  And indeed, it becomes another brief speech on power, expressing aloud for the first time the notion of being able to take what you want and no one being able to stop you.  Hancock uses a candy bar (Zagnut) to take out the criminal and save the clerk from the loaded weapon, but finds himself, for the first time, humanly vulnerable. 

And in one of the most interesting sequences in American cinema this year, life and death and love and hate are all confronted as Hancock lies dying in a hospital.  Mary, whose most logical step to save him is to fly far away, comes to his side instead, confirming her suspicion that he is becoming mortal faster than they have in previous situations. She uses her power – which turns out to have become minimal – and takes a bullet for him.  As they both lay dying, Hancock gathers up and uses his power with lethal intent for the first time, to save Mary and her family from further harm.  But he is too late, it seems, to save Mary.  

And as Hancock's recent nemesis is about to shoot our hero in the head, taking power back against all logical expectation... at this moment that seems to be the end of the last superhuman duo on earth... it is the most peaceful adult earthling in the film, Ray Embrey, who takes power over the most evil character in the film, saving Hancock and, in theory, getting some revenge on the man who just killed his wife.  He becomes the embodiment of a wrong that is, one oculd argue, right. And with the death of Mary, Hancock gains power.  And with that power, which sadly grows the longer she is dead, he manages to give her life again… by leaving... a choice that we find out he has come to peace with… at least until a sequel.

In the Superman II of it all, give me this a lot sooner than you give me the “he’s on the inside, the light’s on the outside” shtick. 

But it is this basic notion that these two superbeings were somehow put on earth as a safety valve with this odd control mechanism that makes personal contact between the pair a kind of Kryptonite, not killing them, but making them human, that clearly is causing a lot of neck wrenching.  It is the marvelous irony that Mary, who is fully aware of her power and its origins, has chosen a “simple human life” willingly while Hancock, unaware of his origins, has embodied the most painfully vulnerable of human existences, crawling into a bottle (or 4).  Must we be self-aware to truly be human?

What is fascinating about the “controversy” over the film is that it is, in point of fact, so much more complex than other superhero films… and that complexity seems to be what so irritates so many of the people who are paid to take films seriously, serious films or not. 

If you want to know why mainstream film criticism is dying… well, for me to claim Hancock defines the problem would be arrogant and foolish.  But at the core of it, to me, is the idea that so many mainstream critics don’t seem as interested on chewing on any film that isn’t branded as “arty” going in.  It’s not that the internet conversations are inherently more right.  The authors are certainly not as experienced, as a rule.  But they are far more, for the most part, athletic in thinking about the work.  And while there is a lot of worthless crap floating around in a web without borders, there are also a lot of ideas worth seriously considering, even if you end up disagreeing.  The arrogance of the backhanded dismissal is dying with the double-truck display ad.  And good riddance.  There are many very smart ponies who have been doing their one trick too long for their own good.  Time to step up… or step aside.  Criticism, whatever form it takes, is not for the faint of heart.

And neither is Hancock.

Non - Spoiler Review...

May 16 Box Office Chart
Season's First Box Office Chart - 4/21/08

- Email David Poland