{"id":443,"date":"2009-06-10T03:38:21","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T03:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amperzen.com\/blog\/?p=443"},"modified":"2009-06-10T03:38:21","modified_gmt":"2009-06-10T03:38:21","slug":"review-hancock-directed-by-peter-berg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amperzen.com\/blog\/review-hancock-directed-by-peter-berg\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Hancock (directed by Peter Berg)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hancock<\/a>I’m probably one of the last people to get to see Hancock. We watched it as a play now on Netflix. I can’t comment on the clarity of the sound or the picture — remember Netflix insists that you use IE to watch their movies and there’s very little control on the viewer’s side (personally, I think Netflix should take a look at Hulu with their use any browser, clear sound, crisp pictures — I can even read the credits; can’t on Netflix — and sometimes closed captioning.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’d seen clips and it looked like it would be fun. Hancock<\/em> stars Will Smith, Jason Bateman, Charlize Theron, Eddie Fernandez, and Johnny Galecki among others. Never could resist a Will Smith film and this was worth watching. Basically, Hancock (Smith) is a superhero who is, in all honesty, a jerk. He’s a drunk with anger management issues and he gets the job done but with no care what so ever about collateral damage as long as the bad guys get caught. Along comes Ray (Bateman) a PR guy who wants to make the world a better place, and convinces Hancock that he doesn’t need to be a jerk — he can be loved and respected and sets out to change him. Mary (Theron), Ray’s wife, thinks Hancock may be a lost cause.<\/p>\n

That’s the bare bones, no spoilers, outline. Berg manages to have a goodly number of twist on this tale and things are not as the audience originally thought. Hancock is rude, sloppy, crude, and a drunk with tremendous power. He does his job but everyone hates him and he doesn’t fit in — he’s alone. One of a kind. He hasn’t got any connection to the people he’s helping. He has no memory of who he is or how he got to be the way he is. Can he change his attitude and become a better person?\u00a0 Ray thinks he can.<\/p>\n

On one level this is a film about connections and belonging. Hancock can see those connections but he doesn’t feel them and Ray makes him believe that maybe he could be different. Of course that doesn’t mean he’s going to change overnight. There are some truly funny moments in the film.<\/p>\n

There’s also an undercurrent of “what are you willing to do for love”? Most of us think that we’d do anything for the people we love, but would we? Would we give them up and walk away if it meant their happiness? What we really mean is that we’d do anything to be with the ones we love — but if keeping them safe and healthy meant stepping away — that’s where most of us would have to really examine just how deep our love goes. Hancock wants to find a place for himself. He wants to understand who he is and where he comes from. He wants to be more than he is — a superhero with attitude. Once he comes to learn more about himself, he has to make some hard choices and decide who he really is.<\/p>\n

Somehow, this superhero, comic summer film has a lot more meat on it that was expected. But it’s still plain good fun. You don’t have to appreciate that there’s more to it than the surface explosions and action sequences. It works on several levels. Some of the scenes that I was looking forward to from the clips turned out to be in the film as YouTube videos and not really all that easy to see (at least in the resolution of NetFlix via IE — but that’s the medium. Guess we might buy the DVD afterall — someday when it shows up in the sale bin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m probably one of the last people to get to see Hancock. We watched it as a play now on Netflix. I can’t comment on the clarity of the sound or the picture — remember Netflix insists that you use IE to watch their movies and there’s very little control on the viewer’s side (personally, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[201,202,200],"class_list":["post-443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-dvd","tag-superhero","tag-will-smith"],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nReview: Hancock (directed by Peter Berg) - A Curious Statistical Anomaly<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/amperzen.com\/blog\/review-hancock-directed-by-peter-berg\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"davinci\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/amperzen.com\\\/blog\\\/review-hancock-directed-by-peter-berg\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/amperzen.com\\\/blog\\\/review-hancock-directed-by-peter-berg\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"davinci\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/amperzen.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/4344e39b0408fba0234cf68dcf6ea62e\"},\"headline\":\"Review: Hancock (directed by Peter Berg)\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-06-10T03:38:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/amperzen.com\\\/blog\\\/review-hancock-directed-by-peter-berg\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":651,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/amperzen.com\\\/blog\\\/review-hancock-directed-by-peter-berg\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/ecx.images-amazon.com\\\/images\\\/I\\\/51T-WgXhvZL._SL500_AA240_.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"DVD\",\"SuperHero\",\"Will Smith\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Review\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/amperzen.com\\\/blog\\\/review-hancock-directed-by-peter-berg\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/amperzen.com\\\/blog\\\/review-hancock-directed-by-peter-berg\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/amperzen.com\\\/blog\\\/review-hancock-directed-by-peter-berg\\\/\",\"name\":\"Review: Hancock (directed by Peter Berg) - 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