Thursday, August 28, 2008

Hancock movie review

Me and the li'l lady and a friend of ours saw Hancock the other day. We were somewhat amused by it. In particular, we liked Will Smith as the cranky, bumbling superhero whose antics were both benevolent and often incompetent. Critiques of the quality of the movie, otherwise, is a fairly weak script and incoherent plot plus mediocre effects. The upshot? If you like Will Smith, see it. If you don't, don't. Since I like Will Smith, I kinna liked the movie.

To me, though, what was really interesting is the PR man who turns Hancock's life around. I was getting a very It's a Wonderful Life feeling from it. In It's a Wonderful Life, one of the subtexts is that bankers do good in a community. Bankers are these benevolent people and crap like - the movie is functionally an advertisement for the banking industry. In a similar fashion, the PR protagonist of Hancock is this committed guy who wants to save the world by convincing corporations to do good deeds. I sort of threw up in my mouth about that. I mean, of all the impossible things I found that the most impossible. A superhero that can fly, bounce bullets off his face and move with incredible speed? That's downright realistic compared to an advertising guy trying to save the world through corporate benevolence! To me, that's the worst part of the movie - how it kisses the ass of corporate America and the praise for the ad industry.

1 comment:

Lilithas said...

I didn't even like the PR guy. His character was just annoying, helpful or not. The whole time I was hoping they'd kill him off or something.

But Charlize Theron added a nice touch. ;) And I agree that any Will Smith fan will like this movie.