Hancock

Batutta said:
I thought this film was a mixed bag. It has a fun concept and good cast, and a few scenes where it really works (mostly towards the end), but I found the directing kind of cruddy and the script muddled. Peter Berg never found the right tone and his direction rarely rises above the pedestrian. It makes me really worry about Dune being in his hands. You could smell a really good movie in the making, but it never quite gelled. I think the biggest mistake they made was in spending so much time explaining Hancock's origins and creating a mythology. It took too much of the focus off Hancock's arc as a character, a Superhero who's kind of a scumbag trying to redeem himself, and put it onto a lot of silly, mechanical backstory revelations. I would rather they had left his origins unexplained..And it had without a doubt, HANDS DOWN, the LAMEST villain I've ever seen in a Superhero movie. I'm talking a villain not even worthy of an A-Team episode.
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The 2nd half was much better than the first. I really liked the relationship aspect of will and Charlize. All of that worked for me, I really did not laugh at anything except for the Nutty Buddy ice cream truck scene. THat was funny. I just wish the 2md half was as good as the first. Berg did an okay job, but his style just did not fit with this. The kingdom was great and he is talented, anyone studying under Mann should be. but shaky doc style camera work did not work for me. I enjoyed wanted more than this. I really do see why it is getting better ratings. Wanted knew what kind of movie it was. A preposterous one. But it knew. It is as not bad as wild wild west but it is next in line. His performance was not even up to Big willy standards. And the head up the ass thing was not funny. It was a shock but I did not laugh at it. Agreed on the villian thing. She is very hot though.
 
Rotten Tomatoes is just losing all credibility. Wanted is a terrible movie. Yes, there are worse. But 75% of critics recommend it? It sounds like Hancock might be better, but only gets 35% on RT. I'll have to check out Hancock for myself, but I'm just really finding the critics across the board so entirely unreliable.
 
sean90291 said:
Rotten Tomatoes is just losing all credibility. Wanted is a terrible movie. Yes, there are worse. But 75% of critics recommend it? It sounds like Hancock might be better, but only gets 35% on RT. I'll have to check out Hancock for myself, but I'm just really finding the critics across the board so entirely unreliable.
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What up sean? Rotten Tomatoes is pretty accurate most of the time, but not all IMO. I Thought Wanted was better than Hancock personally. Neither one of these movies are great in any way.
 
Yeah, RT has been a pretty good guage for me in the past. But I can't believe so many critics liked Wanted, which I thought was so derivative, trite and not worth $10. Even the director's signature visual flare felt a bit tired. Like I'd seen this in Charlies Angels II. His Night Watch visual style was way more creative, I thought. As for the story...just lame. Some cool ideas that never came off very well.
 
filthrich said:
The 2nd half was much better than the first. I really liked the relationship aspect of will and Charlize. All of that worked for me, I really did not laugh at anything except for the Nutty Buddy ice cream truck scene. THat was funny. I just wish the 2md half was as good as the first. Berg did an okay job, but his style just did not fit with this. The kingdom was great and he is talented, anyone studying under Mann should be. but shaky doc style camera work did not work for me. I enjoyed wanted more than this. I really do see why it is getting better ratings. Wanted knew what kind of movie it was. A preposterous one. But it knew. It is as not bad as wild wild west but it is next in line. His performance was not even up to Big willy standards. And the head up the ass thing was not funny. It was a shock but I did not laugh at it. Agreed on the villian thing. She is very hot though.
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While I agree the Will & Charlize thing worked unto itself, it kind of derailed what the story should've been about in the first place, Hancock's redemption. I think the main misstep was giving him amnesia. The idea of a cranky, alcoholic & depressed Superhero is an interesting one, and left me wanting to know why he is the way he is. But because he has amnesia, even Hancock himself doesn't know why he is this way so he can't reveal anything about his own pain. When we find out why he has amnesia and what his past truly is, it doesn't do much to explain his emotional scars.
 
Amnesia is almost always a terrible story device. I'm not saying you can't find ways to make it work anymore, but it's become one of the worst cliches.

I agree with you Batutta, it should have been about his redemption. That's what was interesting. I can't believe you guys are giving the second half of the story credit. The second half was a complete disaster. The second (major spoiler) the wacky out-of-left-field twist comes and we discover Charlize is a superhero, the movie loses all credibility because it's never set up (unless you count the strange look she gives Will Smith when he first comes over). Therefore we have to buy into a fantasy on top of a fantasy. To me, that would be no different than if Jason Bateman discovered he had super powers in the final battle. And to be honest, I wouldn't have been surprised if he did. It's too much to take. On top of that, we LIKE Jason Bateman's character. And now we're told to invest ourselves in a relationship with Hancock and his wife??

Because of that, you couldn't have paid me to believe in their relationship. Therefore, I thought everything between them dying half-dying, coming back alive, dying again -- and all that nonsense, in the end was atrocious.

And the truest sign of hacky writing of all (which I forgot to mention before) was the whole "as*hole" thing. Whenever you don't want to give your character a true inner journey, just give them a name they don't like to be called. It's the epitome of surface level and is why Back To The Future 3 was so terrible ("Chicken"). "Oooh, you just called me "as*hole". That make me angry!" The more I think about this movie, the more that I hate it. No, that's not true. I hate whoever wrote it. This is truly one of those times where I believe 50% of the world could've written a better script than this.

The fact that they put probably 10-15 million into writing this script over the years and this is what we got is truly sad and shows exactly what's wrong with the studio system. There are too many people with too many opinions and everybody wants their "scene" or that "story element" or their "twist idea" or their "character" included in the final screenplay and as a result, we get something with a whole lotta stuff that doesn't really make any sense and isn't emotionally satisfying at all.

Someone ought to take a look at the way Pixar does their script development and apply that model to the studio system. I'm not really sure what they do and I haven't liked all their movies but one thing I'll give them is that all their movies have very clear storylines and very simple narratives. In short, they make sense. So if anyone knows what the difference in development between Pixar and all these live action studios, please post them here. I'd like to know. If I could make a guess, I would say it's probably the star's fault. The stars come in and want beefed up scenes to make them look cooler and cooler storylines to make them look cooler - and none of these guys knows anything about story. They have no idea of the effect this has on the overall script. I'm assuming this doesn't happen at Pixar (because stars are just lending their voices and there isn't as much at stake) so this would be the first place I'd point to. But does anyone else have any ideas?
 
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I feel you, c.g., I do. I'm just not as offended as you. I've just seen so many bad movies this summer that this is far from the worst. Add to that that I went into having heard that the early reviews were horrible, so I was expecting something much worse.


Berg did an okay job, but his style just did not fit with this.
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I disagree. I think the hacked story (that c.g. outlines) does not fit with Berg's style. Why do I say this? Because for me, everything that worked for the film was BERG. It was everything that didnt fit with his style (the Spiderman 3 fight and all the 2nd half cr@p) that killed the movie. If the story had been kept in Bergville, it would have been untouchable. Instead, it went to RatnerSommersland.
 
I liked the movie I think it suffered from editing. the pace was extremely fast for any real character arc. but enjoyable, better than I thought it be.
 
I have mixed feelings for this film. I really liked the humor of the movie and how it blended pretty well with the action. Some things that I didnt like.

CONTAINS SPOILERS! HIGHLIGHT TO READ!

I thought the whole girl being able to control the weather was a bit cheesy but that might just be me. Also I didnt like the amount of handheld the used. It was fine in some parts of the movie where its a very dramatic part and you want to show tension but I felt like it was being over used and distracted from the film.

All in all, i would give it a 6 out of 10 because I had high anticipations for this film and it wasn't as great as I thought it would be. But i still enjoyed it and i recommend you go see it.
 
*****SPOILERS AHEAD*****

I think the whole weather thing wasn't supposed to be actual powers a la Storm from X-Men, but a result of the energy they were expending. They, after all, aren't super heroes in the traditional sense but some sort of mystical beings.

I thought the movie was OK, maybe because like some of you guys, I went in with lowered expectations due to what I'd heard. The origin did feel kind of tacked on, but the whole was enjoyable enough for a popcorn flick. I think they wanted to add a depth and differentiate from the standard super hero origin and I can appreciate that but it was a little disjointed. And that guy...the villain...he was so lame. But then again, humans against super powers usually are. (Lex Luthor).
 
It's official. Will Smith's sh*t doesn't stink! Hancock grossed 106 million over the Holiday.
 
I think Berg sucks and he is going to butcher the new Dune remake. Hancock was so misguided and unsteady, what a retarded script with totally unbelievable characters! The CG and action wasn't even good, which is ALL this movie had going for it!

Dark Knight will obliterate this at the box office, because Chris Nolan actually has talent and intelligence. Any idiot can pay however many tens of millions to put Will Smith into a blockbuster and reap the rewards; but to actually make a good movie that people will care about and remember, that is something Berg is incapable of. I was insulted and want my money back!!
 
DerrickTempleton said:
I think Berg sucks and he is going to butcher the new Dune remake. Hancock was so misguided and unsteady, what a retarded script with totally unbelievable characters! The CG and action wasn't even good, which is ALL this movie had going for it!
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I agree with the post EXCEPT for the "Berg Sucks..." part. I think he is a pretty good director who just was not right for this film. And I don't think his style is right for Dune either. I thought he did a great job on Friday Night Lights and the Kingdom. And The CGI was not up par with Big Willy standards.
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Everyone I know thought it sucked, I sort of liked it, not really what I was expecting, but was an ok movie overall. The VFX were not all that great though and I was really looking forward to it. Batman looks like it'll be real Good! That bank scene looks great.
 
I just got back from the movie and overall it was well done, the CG was alright, actually it was pretty damn good. The story was interesting and I found it very entertaining.

For the first little while I was analyzing the movie far to much and I just had to give up and enjoy it.

Will Smith is good and Hancock was a very well made and entertaining film!

Batman however will be sweet! Will Ledger live up to Nicholson.... hmm
 
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