The Cinema of the Four

Hancock

The good Dr. Watson the Fourth has been so kind as to advise me once again against my seeming addiction to a seven per cent solution of generic dramamine. I have explained to him that it has become a staple of the consulting movie investigator business, with cases like “Cloverfield” and “The Bourne Ultimatum” turning up with ever-increasing frequency. I sense the hidden hand of Professor Moriarty behind it all, for there is surely no obvious logic behind the overuse of shaking cameras in cinema of late.

“Just don’t go see ‘Hancock,’” Watson argued on Saturday last.

“Any case involving Will Smith is sure to provide features of interest,” I replied. “Even the horrors that stalked ‘The Wild, Wild West’ were not without interest to the cinematic expert. Come, Watson, let us go at once!”

Hours later, we found ourselves in a four-wheeler returning home.

“Really, Watson,” I said. “You didn’t have to boo at the end of the movie.”

“I could not help it, Holmes. My eyes were closed through most of it to avoid the effects of the oscillating camera. It seemed like a waste of my war wound pension, paying to watch an unwatchable thing.”

I simply patted my pocket and the dramamine within.

“A shocking habit, Holmes. Next you’ll be injecting cocaine to get through dull, slow-moving plots, treating yourself with morphine to endure Oscar season . . . where will it end!”

We rode on in silence, and I contemplated the film we has just seen. “Hancock” featured Will Smith as a seeming tramp of a superhero, fighting crime and saving lives in a fashion most sloppy and haphazard. Hancock has most of the powers of Superman, yet none of the straight-A student/Eagle Scout manners and value system. He get the job done, but is grumpy about it if it’s the first thing in the morning, or if the person he’s rescuing seems to have gotten themselves into a stupid situation. In short, Hancock is, basically, one of us. He grudgingly does his job, but never really goes out of his way to push his talents to their best use. Jason Bateman plays Hancock’s missing other half Superman-wise, the PR man with the heart of gold who tries to help him get his superheroic act together.

The result is actually a movie that’s overstuffed with ideas, many of which never fully get played out. Hancock is a great character, and the movie “Hancock” seems like it is actually a first Hancock movie and its own sequel, something that could have easily been four hours long, but got short-handed into an hour and a half. The cast is great, and the story has real heart. Will it be for everyone? Like Hancock himself, probably not.