DVD: Hancock

By: Eli Turner Posted: January 11, 2009

I went into Hancock expecting total trash based on all the reviews and personal opinions I had heard, but by the end I was thinking to myself, "hm, that really wasn't that bad." When I say that Hancock is not bad, that's not to say that it is particularly good, either, but it far surpassed the incredibly low bar that the word-of-mouth had set for me.

I must be fair and admit that I knew what the turn in the film was going to be before watching it, and judging from the complaints I heard from people that saw it without knowing the turn, knowing about it ahead of time may help. Unfortunately, there is no way of testing this hypothesis without skewing the result either way, but darn it if I won't make wild claims anyway.

Hancock starts off with an action sequence, of course, but the first fifteen minutes of the film or so feel very rushed. It's the same feeling you get during the entirety of Jumper. I should not compare this film with Jumper, though, because as not great as this movie was, Jumper was infinitely worse. I'm still mad about having watched that movie. I'm fuming silently at the keyboard right now.

But I digress greatly. Anyway, this film feels like it should be a lot longer. The films just tries to do way to much in not enough time. The film dwells too much in the underdeveloped drama and lacks in the conspicuously absent action sequences. There was so much more that could have been done in this movie.

The backstory ends up vaguely trailing off some ten thousand years ago, and that's about as good as the explanation gets. Most of the backstory is undeveloped, incomplete, and vague... at best. Also, the attempts at emotional involvement end up landing softly, so really there's nothing I can find in reviewing this movie that leads me to say that any aspect is above average.

One thing that was nice, though, was watching Will Smith play a bad guy, if only for the first half of the movie. It was refreshing to hear the Fresh Prince say, "I've been drinkin', bitch!" He always plays good guys in every movie. In fact, off the top of my head I can't think of any movie in which he played a prick. He even wears a bluetooth headset if you need proof that Hancock is a prick.

Special Features:

• Theatrical and Unrated Versions of Hancock
• Superhumans: The Making of Hancock
• Home Life
• Seeing the Future
• Suiting Up
• Building a Better Hero
• Bumps and Bruises
• Mere Mortals: Behind the Scenes with 'Dirty Pete'
• Digital Copy of the Film