Imagine The Incredibles meets A Clockwork Orange . You remember The Incredibles , that Pixar sensation about the family of superheroes who are domesticated by a politically correct society that defines pluralism as an egregious egalitarianism and a uniform mediocrity.
And A Clockwork Orange is, of course, Anthony Burgess’ (and, by way of film adaptation, Stanley Kubrick’s) paean to free will, in which a Beethoven-loving thug named Alex makes a deal with the devil (in this case, Britain’s liberal government) by allowing himself to be “pacified’ by means of extreme aversion therapy in exchange for early release from prison. Problem is, once out in the mean streets, Alex is unable even to defend himself without retching. After almost dying at the hands of a man he had once terrorized, our antihero regains his propensity for sadism—the lesson being, the Alexes of the world must be tolerated if we are to remain fully human and fully free. Coerced “goodness” is no goodness at all.
And so a funky melange of these two flicks is what I expected from Will Smith’s new summer action flick, Hancock . At least it’s what I expected from the trailer. And the first hour of the film itself seemed to confirm my suspicions. Smith plays a lonely, drunken, and foul-mouthed superhero named Hancock, whose attempts at crime-fighting wreak as much havoc as they subdue. Only after a public-relations executive (Jason Bateman), grateful to Hancock for saving his life, decides to remake the loathed superman’s image do things really get interesting.
On the advice of his new PR rep, Hancock allows himself to be encarcerated (after evading roughly 600 subpoenas for destruction of private and public property), which gives him time to get in touch with his feelings and the greater Los Angeles area time to realize that a drunken superhero is better than no superhero at all.
With L.A. in chaos, the chief of police places the call we knew was coming, and a revamped touchy-feelly Hancock (now donning a supertight costume that makes him look like a rogue member of KC and the Sunshine Band) hits the streets to the plaudits of the public and the gratitude of the authorities. Suddenly the much-misunderstood miscreant is celebrated and adored. (Watching Hancock try and “smile” for the paparazzi’s cameras—a wince welded to a scowl—is spit-your-popcorn-into-the-neck-of-the-poor-sap-sitting-in-front-of-you guaranteed.)
So far, so good—a weird, moody summer blockbuster in the making, with strange needle-drops ranging from Freddy Fender to the theme from Sanford and Son . Will the new politically correct Hancock continue to rate as a crime fighter? Or will the emasculated man of steel find that he needs to break a few rules to keep law and order after all? And will Will Smith prove once again that he owns the Fourth of July weekend like Lucas and Spielberg own the last week in May?
I wish I had the answers. Unfortunately, as it limps into its second hour, Hancock gets all I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched on us. The second half of the film reveals Hancock’s distaff “Other.” It seems that he had forgotten that he was, in fact, married to a female superhero—his paired opposite—whom he has been alternately repelling and attracting for lo these past 3,000 years.
What follows is a morose muddle of a message: something about conventional marriage being innately disempowering, the perils of interracial dating, and the self-sacrifice that makes every heroic life worthy of the epithet. Or something like that. In the end, the obligatory showdown and a sentimental twist make Hancock a confused disappointment that tried to say too much too late than the really edgy and countercultural phenomenon it could have been.
My disgruntlement notwithstanding, that first fantastic hour is worth the price of admission. And Will Smith proves once again why he is a star, refining what had the makings of a franchise-worthy character by means of an empathetic demeanor and a self-confidence that is never off-putting. ( Nota bene : This is not a film for smallish children. The coarse language and affinity for dismemberment should make that “PG-13” pop for parents.)
Unfortunately, it’s neither Love nor Evil that undoes our hero but a screenplay that needed one more final draft .
