I may not have been watching all that much TV lately, but all of a sudden I keep seeing ads for Hancock.
Looks pretty funny to me.
Thoughts?
Looks cool. I like the idea of a homeless super hero.
It looks like it might have promise, but the lack of heavy buzz leads me to think that it might be a dog. We’ll see…
Lack of buzz? It doesn’t open until July and trailers have been running on TV since early May. I’d say there’s lots of buzz.
Not that kind of buzz. All that is is marketing. I haven’t heard a peep anywhere else about the movie, unlike any number of other “blockbusters” recently.
I’m really excited to see this movie. I love Will Smith and super heroe movies. I really like the premise of him being an alcoholic super heroe who doesn’t really care what the public thinks of him.
The part about him becoming a “proper” super heroe might come off kind of preachy and cheesy so I hope that doesn’t happen until the end of the movie and that most of it is him being a drunk bastard.
I haven’t seen it, but I’ve been following its development closely.
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The original title (at script and greenlight stage) was Tonight, He Comes.
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In the film, there’s apparently a superpower gag in which Hancock, at moment of orgasm, shoots holes in the roof of a trailer with his ejaculate. Whether you find this a clever allusion to “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” or irredeemably juvenile will be a matter of taste.
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The director is Peter Berg, who’s managed to make pretty good entertainment out of some really thin and initially unimpressive material (The Rundown, The Kingdom). He’ll be doing Dune next.
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Advance test screenings have resulted in poor-to-middling feedback. There’s apparently a third-act plot twist centering on the Charlize Theron character that doesn’t work at all, and torpedoes whatever goodwill the movie has built up to that point.
Bottom line: depress your expectations as low as they’ll go.
Dang. ‘Cause it looked like a big ol’ Snickers Bar of a movie to me – mindless enjoyment, no nutritional value. I was really looking forward to it, in a “two hours of summer entertainment” kind of way.
Wasn’t this movie’s release date pushed back for reshoots and effects issues? Sounds ominous if so, which is a pity; it looks pretty cool, and it’d be nice to see Will Smith play sleazy. The trailer is the first time in a long time that I haven’t seen Will Smith act like… Will Smith.
I’ve been a little perplexed by the marketing behind this movie.
The first I heard of it was seeing one of its trailers. I thought, “OK, Will Smith’s a superhero . . . hey now, it’s got Jason Bateman, too!!! And did I just see him throw a whale into the ocean??”
I thought it had all the markings of an excellent silly action comedy, a genre which when done right (Galaxy Quest, Midnight Run) is my favorite kind of movie.
Then I saw a later commercial. It made Will Smith out to be some kind of angry hip-hop superhero. Kind of unappealing, if you ask me, and a complete tonal shift from the earlier trailer.
Bottom line: I don’t think the studio knows what it has a hold of here. Not a good sign.
As Stephen King notes in his column in last week’s Entertainment Weekly, that’s hype. Buzz isn’t generated or paid for by the studio. Hype costs money. Buzz is free.
Thanks for clearing that up I was a bit confused on “buzz” so I didn’t comment on it. There is quite a bit of buzz within my small world of friends and family but then again most of us are superheroe fans. Some of us even enjoyed Elektra.
Why don’t they just call it Superman? It’ll have as much to do with that as I, Robot and I Am Legend had to do with their respective source material.
A friend of mine saw the advance screening (and met Will Smith there!) and says that the movie was very good until the end, which wasn’t good. He’s a doper too, so I’ll lead him to this thread so he can tell you more.
I’ll give Peter Berg the benefit of the doubt, so I’ll probably see it.
Does anybody know what he’s drinking out of that 1.75 L brown jug? Seagram’s?
Jesus Ponyriding Christ!
It’s been done. The Return of Captain Invincible (1983) - IMDb
I heard it is supposed to be a very dark comedy or drama - not the typical summer blockbuster action/comedy as the trailers might lead one to believe. But that’s just what I’ve picked up from the ether.
I think in the beginning it was supposed to be a very dark comedy, with Will Smith being a lecherous homeless drunk–a black twist on the superhero genre. Now I think the studio’s smoothed it out into more family-friendly fare, which is really disappointed. It’s the same old Will Smith character again.