Black Superhero Movie - Hancock (2008)

[Mal12345]

In honor of the first black superhero movie ever produced, Black Panther, I downloaded and watched a black superhero movie that was released 10 years prior, back in 2008. The name - Hancock (starring Will Smith).

When we first meet John Hancock (Will Smith) he doesn't seem to have amounted to much for a superhero with Superman's powers. He lives out in the desert outside of LA in two run-down trailer houses that he connected together. He has random female sex partners. And while he does save lives and fight crime, he does so in a very ham-handed and reckless, uncaring kind of way. Even when he lands after flying around he puts a huge hole in the pavement or asphalt. He just doesn't give a shit.

There are a couple twists and turns in the plot and somehow everything turns out all right. But not until after a very interesting surprise.

I enjoyed Hancock. But I'm not sure if maybe Smith underplayed his superhero role just a bit. This wasn't the wise-cracking Will Smith, but a Will Smith who just acts - maybe bored, or morose, or cynical, or some similar adverb. The movie uses a more colorful description.

The effects were very good for 2008. I'll give the movie 7.5 out of 10 stars. Smith was too quiet for my liking. I prefer a spunkier, mouthier Will Smith myself.

 

[Totenkindly]

I would have liked to have seen the original darker version of the film, instead of the rewritten script that somewhat sanitized the character. The turning point mid-film, I don't think really improved the film at all but just made it more conventional and disjointed at the same time. Can't complain about Jason Bateman, I thought he was pretty funny as the white PR guy trying to make Hancock palatable to the culture at large despite his rough edges -- it's like he had to be a PR/advertising guy as well as a pseudo-defense-attorney.

The concept itself was actually great; I enjoyed the grunged-up Will Smith as the superhero without much social skill or graces and unsure of even how to be a heroic figure. He's kind of a self-absorbed figure who supposes he should be using his powers "for good" but doesn't even intuitively understand what that means, so everything he does is tainted in some way. Unfortunately instead of trying to grapple through that, it uses a cheaper twist to simply cast it as something that happened to him due to the situation rather than a moral decline he is responsible for in some way.