Topic: Jason Bateman

Hancock: big jerk, bigger mess

By David W. Shelton | July 3, 2008 |

In a summer where superheroes clearly have staked their territory, Hancock makes the biggest mess of all of them. The weird thing about this mess is that it’s what the film intended. Part superhero movie, part whacked-out theology, and part jerk-gets-redeemed story, Hancock has so many irons in the fire that the audience just doesn’t know what the hell is going on.

Director Peter Berg turns in a celluloid train wreck that’s filled with the overuse of the gutter version of “anus” to such an extent that it becomes a one-joke film. Okay, we get it. John Hancock (Will Smith) is a jerk. He’s the king of potholes, dodging airplanes, and sloshing around with a big bottle of booze. He’s homeless, and hates the world around him. Now, I don’t know if he’s a jerk because of these things, or that being a jerk led him to being  homeless, but frankly, I wasn’t really compelled to care.

I don’t know what it is about today’s filmmakers that feel the necessity to drive in the obvious (that Hancock is a jerk) to the point where even a headache would be a relief. The fact that the first time we hear the word is from a small child is supposed to be funny, but again, it’s stating the obvious. «Read the rest of this article»

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