Some days ago, I was looking for a feel good movie to watch because lately my life has been unsettled with all my travelling as I try to find a permanent home in this war. I'm now in Germany where I hope to reside for a long time. So to keep my mind of things, I randomly selected Hancock to watch.
Hancock stars Will Smith who plays the role of Hancock, a man with superpowers who chases criminals. The catch though is that unlike your typical well behaved superhero with the cape and discipline, his acts of rescue and criminal opposition causes great losses for the city of Los Angeles because he does it in such an inefficient manner. He makes his entrance and exit carelessly. He could for example land on a tarmac and the force could destroy the entire street or all the cars and trains in a bid to catch one villain. The reason for this was his alcoholism and amnesia. Hancock did not know where he came from, all he remembered was finding himself at a hospital some 80 years ago and having no one come to claim him and take him home.
This is where our other star comes in. A man called Ray Embrey, played by Jason Bateman from the Ozarks. Jay plays the role of a public relations specialist and he sees an opportunity to redeem Hancock's image for the public so he can really become the superhero the city of Los Angeles needs. He manages to convince Hancock to go to jail for two weeks, to utter a public apology and go to therapy. He invites him to his house as well where Hancock gets to meet Ray's wife Mary, played by Charlize Theron and Ray's son. It is in one of their discussions during dinner that Hancock reveals the story of his amnesia, and we see Mary with tears in her eyes. In later episodes we learn that Mary is also an immortal and that she was married to Hancock for thousands of years. According to her, the immortals before them had all died and the reason why that happened was because they were paired. Each time the pairs found themselves, their powers would weakened and they could then be hurt. This was how Hancock got attacked and what led to the amnesia.
I found out that Hancock was the fourth highest grossing film of 2018. It $629 million worldwide. That's some jaw dropping figure right there. I also found out that it took about 11 years from the time the script for this was written to the time it actually hit the big screens.
Now to what I liked about this film. I liked the superhero bits of course. I need to watch more outlandish superhero stuff because in a weird way it felt relaxing. I liked how Will Smith carried himself. He's a charismatic actor and quite versatile. I also was pleased to see that Jason Bateman has been playing roles that don't make his character in Ozark far fetched at all. He retains that cool headed, calm guy nature while dealing with dangerous characters. I don't know if that points to a little bit of typecasting but it suits him anyway. Charlize is also great as Mary. She's even more powerful than Hancock and I loved how they were able to find a way to retain their powers and be in each others lives from a distance.
Feel free to share your thoughts on this movie. Not everyone is a fan of this as can be seen on rotten tomatoes but hey, figures don't lie so I guess there is big love and big hate for it. I personally would rate it an 8.5 out of 10 because of the state of mind I was in when I watched it and the goal I had when I picked a movie to watch. It did it's job.
I'm happy to be posting more on hive and I hope to do more reviews in the coming days. Thanks for stopping by!