"Hancock" by Peter Berg: a review

Hancock was released in July 2008 and falls under the categories of fantasy/action/crime. It stars Will Smith (John Hancock), Jason Bateman (Ray Embrey) and Charlize Theron (Mary Embrey) as the leading characters. The movie was up for seven Oscar nominations of which two were won; Favorite Movie Actor and Choice Summer Movie: Action Adventure.

The movie follows the life of John Hancock who is an alcoholic with superhuman powers such as immortality; he can fly at the speed of lightning and has superhuman strength. He uses his powers to help people and fight criminality but his excessive consumption of alcohol leads to him to cause damage to buildings in his efforts to rescue people from harm. Consequently he gets called names by the public he is trying to help and is deemed a nuisance by the Police. He chooses to ignore the numerous bills and court subpoenas regarding the damage he has inflicted around the city of Los Angeles. Ray Embrey, who works in Public Relations has a meeting that goes bad and on his way home from work he gets stuck on a railroad track that has a freight train on its tracks. Hancock derails the train and causes damage to other cars but he saves Ray’s life. The public are not impressed with the damage caused but Ray is grateful to Hancock for saving his life and promises to help him increase his public image for the better and although Hancock is not over the moon about the offer, he accepts.

Ray goes on to convince Hancock to surrender himself to the Police for the ignored court summons, in a bid to show the public and the Police how valuable Hancock really is and sure enough, after he is imprisoned, the crime rate in Los Angeles soars. Hancock is asked by the Chief of Police to intercept a bank robbery and when he does so successfully, he is hailed a hero. To celebrate, Hancock goes out for a meal with Ray and Mary (Ray’s wife) and Hancock proceeds to open up to Mary and tell her about his immortality and amnesia that took place eighty years earlier. After putting a drunken Ray to bed, Hancock discovers that Mary also has superhuman powers and threatens to tell everyone if she refuses to disclose where they came from. Mary informs him that they have been around for three thousand years and were once considered to be Gods and angels but she doesn’t reveal the whole truth; the truth that if they get close to each other that they will begin to lose their powers. She does tell him that they are the last of their kind and are supposed to be a couple.

Meanwhile, Hancock makes his way to tell Ray about his new-found information but Hancock and Mary end up in a battle that causes mayhem. Ray realizes that Mary has superhuman powers like Hancock and Mary now reveals that she and Hancock used to be a couple but in order to allow him to recuperate fully after the attack that led to his amnesia she had to flee. During an interception of a robbery at a liquor store, Hancock gets shot and at the hospital Mary opens up to him and reveals the history between them. Whilst at the hospital Mary defends Hancock and in doing so is shot by the bank robber who was looking for coin sorting machines to use. Ray appears in time and stops the bank robber from killing Hancock with a fire axe. With the last of his powers, Hancock leaves the hospital to allow Mary to heal and goes to New York where he continues his superhero work and in respect of Ray he paints Ray’s All-Heart charity logo on the moon.

Hancock was given a budget when made of 150 million dollars and went on to make a staggering 630 million worldwide. A lot of the movie’s success was perhaps attributed to the lead role played by the ever popular Will Smith. The movie itself was directed by Peter Berg and focuses on a superhero with a difference.