movie review--hancock--a bit of a mess

"Hancock" is a mess. Some, I know, haven't like it. I remember hearing last week a person on a local radio station who gives brief reviews of movies, and his take on "Hancock" was rather low, a mere one-and-a-half out of five stars.

My take on it is a bit higher. I actually enjoyed it, and thought it pretty good. Not great, but worth a viewing.

The character of Hancock is indeed a mess when the movie begins. He's obviously a 'good guy', but of a rather rough sort. He's obvious out to get the 'bad guys', but his methods are clumsy and destructive, and his way with people not very good. For example, in one scene he saves a man from being killed by a train, but in doing so causes the train to wreck, and while it looks to have been only a freight train, it was still quite a wreck.

The man he saves is some kind of PR guy, and in return for the save he tries to help Hancock improve his image and people skills. That is one big part of the rest of movie, and the other is how this encounter with the PR guy leads to another encounter with someone like Hancock.

In one sense, Hancock is like a Superman with an attitude problem. He flies, he's bulletproof, though he doesn't seem to have things like x-ray vision or heat rays. He isn't an alien, and is much older then he appears, but doesn't seem to know what exactly he is due to a head injury and amnesia.

One way in which the movie is a mess is that it doesn't explain things very well. We never really learn what Hancock is, or the others like him, or really what their role was suppose to have been.

There is quite a bit of language in the movie, little of it really bad. There is some crass humor. There is no sexual stuff that I remember, except one thing at the beginning.

The part of the story where the PR guy tries to persuade companies to give away their products, such as medications, is one of interest. I don't know how much money such companies would put into research, or how much testing would be needed for such things to be approved, but it does strike me as naive to expect such companies to give away their work for the little reward of putting a certain logo on their other products.

The rights and wrongs of company's policies, charitable works, and how to really help people, are beyond the scope of a review such as this. Suffice it for now to say that 'Hancock' is rather simplistic in this regard.

All told, though, it's a pretty good movie. Maybe a little more thought could have been put into the story, but it doesn't really take away from it.