Summer of '08: Hancock

People should love you. They really should, okay? You're a superhero.

Welcome back to the latest edition of Summer of ‘08! We have another superhero movie this week, but this one doesn’t look like the rest.

Hancock (2008)

Hancock is a down-and-out superhero who's forced to employ a PR expert to help repair his image when the public grows weary of all the damage he's inflicted during his lifesaving heroics. The agent's idea of imprisoning the antihero to make the world miss him proves successful, but will Hancock stick to his new sense of purpose or slip back into old habits?

July 2, 2008

Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman, Jae Head, Eddie Marsan. cinematography by Tobias Schliessler
music by John Powell
screenplay by Vy Vincent Ngo, Vince Gilligan
produced by Akiva Goldsman, James Lassiter, Michael Mann, Will Smith
directed by Peter Berg

If you look at the list of roles that Will Smith turned down, it's amazing how long his reign as a movie star lasted. It's become common knowledge that he turned down Neo in The Wachowskis' The Matrix to do Wild Wild West (listen, hindsight is 2020). He was basically all but cast as the title character in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained before changing his mind. And it's only come out recently that he turned down the DiCaprio part in Christopher Nolan's Inception.

It's even crazier to think how long he was box office butter when you look at the roles he actually thought were good ideas: After Earth, Suicide Squad, Aladdin, Bright. He has pretty terrible taste. And while his infamous Oscars Slap was the nail in the coffin, I believe 2008's Hancock was the beginning of the end. It's after this failed superhero attempt that he returned to the sure-thing Men in Black franchise, met M. Night at rock bottom, and started embarrassing himself regularly on his wife's Facebook talk show.

Hancock starts fine. It's the story of a reluctant and alcoholic superhero (in the same summer that other people got to play Batman and The Hulk, boozing jackass supehero is certainly a choice, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it) desperately in need of rebranding. Sure he saves lives, but the public is pretty much fed up with the needless destruction he often leaves in his path. Jason Bateman's PR consultant sees his next great project in Hancock and offers his services. This half of the movie is serviceable and occasionally funny - and at least it's turning the newly evergreen superhero subgenre on its head.