Hey everyone, saw “Hancock” the other night. I really enjoyed the film, it was light weight but an enjoyable romp.
John Hancock is a superhero with a twist, he hates himself and everyone else. He drinks too much and sleeps on park benches like a hobo. When problems arise, Hancock tries to help but because he doesn’t really care about anything, destruction usually follows in his wake. This drives everyone in the city to hate him, which fuels his self loathing and so he drinks more. Enter Justin Bateman, a humble PR man who gets saved by Hancock, so he decides that it is time to change Hancock’s image.
This film is a romp with a fairly unexpected twist. Will Smith is wonderful as Hancock, a role, it would seem, he was born to play. The cast is uniformly good and director Peter Berg (“The Kingdom”) handles the film well. Berg is much better suited to this kind of material (just as he was with “Very Bad Things” and “The Rundown” (“Welcome to the Jungle” for the Australian readers)) than he was to “The Kingdom”. For the film and TV buff, watch carefully in the ER scene to see a cameo by Berg looking very much like he did in “Chicago Hope”.
Buy your popcorn, disengage your brain and just enjoy it for what it is, a fun, loud, fantasy romp.
