Tuesday, January 27, 2009

So I can remember and enjoy

Cole - ok sweetie time to grow up


Posted for posterities sake.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Hancock

Hancock is a movie about a lone superhero. As a lone man, he's become very lonely, despondant, and a drunk. Will Smith does a great job playing the part of an asshole. Throughout the first third of the story, I grew to love to hate his character.

Along the way, he saves Jason Bateman's character. Yet, Bateman is the only one on the scene that is happy Hancock showed up. Thus is born the beginning of a friendship. Bateman is convinced that he can make Hancock into a good guy. Thus we enter the second third of this story.

Hancock is actually wanted by the law, due to his activities. Bateman's character convinces him to turn himself in and due some time. After all, if he's not out in the real world, the bad guys will become more active, and then the world will want Hancock back. We see some change in Hancock here. Not a lot, but some. We see him resisting change and then start to give in to the change.

Suddenly, he's wanted outside the jail to help with a situation. It's at this point, that I became irritated. We didn't see a completion of the change into a good person, before he left jail. Okay, I'm good with that. We'll see more change and development later in the movie.

Except we don't.

He's out, he's free, and he's saving the world. He needs to adjust to it and we see he recognizes that. This part of the movie is way too short. It is at this point that the third part of the story begins. This is the part of the movie that pisses off most people.

We now discover that he's not the only person like him. There is one other. There is some really cool story background here. It's nothing that us geeks haven't thought before. However, the execution here is awesome. Yet, it's a second movie. It has nothing to do with Hancock the asshole.

This part of the movie is Hancock discovering who he is, a little of the why he has his powers, and how his kryptonite works. I like, I think they used a great idea, and I would have loved to see a movie that was about that. However, as this script was written to be an anti-hero movie, we won't get that.

My only other real objection to this movie was all of the European Americans. The Chief of Police is African American, as is Hancock, and one of the three main bad guys in jail. For some reason, I wanted more African American actors. I'm not sure why, but the movie just felt so "white."

Overall, if you want a not-superhero movie that starts out with a little bit Tony Stark and ends with a little bit Clark Kent, you will most likely enjoy this film.