Plot: What’s it about?
Will Smith, to me, is one of my all-time favorite actors. He’s a self-made man who has literally worked his way up the ladder over the past twenty years. He started out as a rapper with cohort DJ Jazzy Jeff (Smith’s moniker was “The Fresh Prince”) which then led Smith to his self-titled television show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and then the inevitable foray into movies was a foregone conclusion. Smith can pretty much do it all and do it well with action/adventure movies under his belt: “Independence Day”, “Bad Boys” and “I, Robot” to the more critically-acclaimed films like “The Pursuit of Happyness” and “Ali” to just plain fun movies like “Men in Black” and “Hitch.” With “Hancock”, this was a combination of several of the above. A superhero movie about a superhero who doesn’t really want to be a superhero? Ok, a novel concept but throw in the fact that he’s a drunk and all of the sudden the plot thickens. Before it even hit theaters, “Hancock” was poised to be a success and it was, though it probably could have been so much more.
“John” Hancock (Will Smith) is the last one of his kind. He makes his living sleeping on park benches, reeking of the smell of alcohol and occasionally he helps out the city of Los Angeles by apprehending some criminals. The thing is, and this is what makes “Hancock” somewhat unique, is that he usually does more harm than good. He doesn’t know his own strength and as he flies through buildings or destroys a highway, the city of LA is left to clean up the mess and foot the bill. The city is rightfully ticked off and they want some action. As fate would have it, Hancock manages to save the life of Ray (Jason Bateman), a PR executive who is trying to sell the image of “giving” as a way for companies to do business. Ray sees the good in Hancock and everything else and uses this as an opportunity to reshape the image of Hancock in the eyes of Los Angeles. This begs the question, however, will Hancock go for it or will he continue to do whatever he wants?
“Hancock” is a novel idea for a movie and with the superhero movies literally dominating the box-office (“Iron Man”, “The Dark Knight” and “Hancock” were three of this year’s top films), this is a little way to poke fun at them. I feel the movie’s third act was a little far-fetched or as much as a movie about a drunk superhero can be, but still felt the film was entertaining. Add to this the charm and physical appeal of Charlize Theron and it’s a recipe for success. “Hancock” is all about having fun and enjoying yourself, there’s not a true deep message to be gleamed from it, rather just escaping for a few hours. The story works well and director Peter Berg has shown that he can make a good action movie like this but also some with a bit more bite as well (“Friday Night Lights” and “The Kingdom”). Fans of Will Smith will no doubt check this out if they haven’t already and the Blu-ray will be one of the year’s top sellers, but for a little more substance it might be best to check out “The Dark Knight” as well.
Video: How does it look?
“Hancock” is the epitome of the big-budget summer studio movie and with its entrance into the Blu-ray format, we’d expect nothing less than perfection. Unfortunately that’s what we get as “Hancock” looks good, but not nearly as good as I thought it would. The 2.35:1 AVC HD transfer is pristine in most parts and some of the stock footage of LA looks a bit worn as well. Colors are bright and vivid and the detail is amazing, seeing the stitching on Hancock’s cap is a testament to how intricate the picture is. A few of the scenes seem to be a bit on the soft side and I saw a bit of noise in some of the daytime parts of the sky. The CGI, of which there’s a lot, tends to look a bit blurred but I don’t fault the transfer for that. The average viewer might not really agree with me on this, but the transfer does fall short of perfection, though not by much.
Audio: How does it sound?
I was prepared to be “wowed” by the Dolby TrueHD track and when the ending credits rolled, I felt somewhat cheated. Don’t get me wrong, the track has some truly great moments but for me it just seemed to lack that punch that separates a good track from a great track. The surrounds are always humming, or so it seemed, and the LFE get a good workout as well. I don’t know, something just seemed to be missing. I wanted to have to turn down the volume during some of the ending fight sequences but was a bit disappointed when that never happened. Again, it’s good and delivers on all levels, but something just felt like we were being cheated.
Supplements: What are the extras?
“Hancock” comes to Blu-ray with an unrated edition and the theatrical version on the same disc. This movie is one I actually made it out to see in theaters and after watching the “unrated” version the only difference I saw was a scene in which Hancock has sex with a woman. That said, the supplements seem a bit fluffy to me with seven featurettes that give us the skinny on the pre and post production of the film, interviews with the cast and crew, a look at the CGI of the film and a look at the set and costume design. The picture-in-picture feature is specific to Blu-ray with some interesting tidbits coming up here and there and your player must be 1.1 enabled for this to work. The disc is also BD Live enabled and your 2.0 player must be able to connect to the internet for this to work too (currently no content is there). I’m sure Sony will milk all they can out of this film, so expect a more robust Blu-ray edition at some point in the future.
The disc does contain a second disc which includes a digital copy of the film.
