Hancock

This afternoon, I went to see Wall-E and Hancock. The former is every bit as good as everyone says. The latter, while not as good as the former, is way better than everyone says. Hancock getting a 42 on Metacritic or a 37 percent (!) on RottenTomatoes is absurd. The film has some serious flaws, but also some very real virtues. David Denby, one of the few critics who liked it, goes overboard by calling it "by far the most enjoyable big movie of the summer" (that's Iron Man) but it is good.

I would analogize Hancock to Starship Troopers -- an innovative and actually pretty arty film miscast as a genre summer blockbuster that will be a critical and commercial failure but later come to be appreciated.

Comments

P. Diddy agrees with you, Matt....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWyjgYZvaj4

Posted by Richard | July 6, 2008 10:55 PM

Say it ain't so, Matt. Wall-E, while a nice, charming kids movie, is *not* as good as everyone said it is. It's good. But it's getting waaaay overhyped. Save for the visual detail of Wall-E (which is exquisite), Kung Fu Panda is better in every way.

Posted by DKE | July 6, 2008 10:58 PM

Two movies in one day? Are you that bored?

Posted by 55 | July 6, 2008 11:17 PM

The Starship Troopers of Summer '08 is supposed to be a compliment?

Posted by phil | July 6, 2008 11:19 PM

Dear Sir,

Your opinion on one, two, three, or all four of the films you mention is incorrect. Allow me to definitively state the contrary.

Respond!!

Sincerely,

About a bajillion comments over the next 45 minutes

Posted by tomemos | July 6, 2008 11:20 PM

Commercial failure?

Hancock made $107 million domestically over the last five days. $185 million worldwide.

Posted by southpaw | July 6, 2008 11:24 PM

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is the must see movie of the summer.

I would say Hulk is about as enjoyable as Iron Man, but that's more a matter of opinion, not like the factual fact that Gonzo rocks.

Posted by Owen | July 6, 2008 11:25 PM

Yeah Matt, check out the box office numbers before labeling Hancock a failure. Made twice as much its first week as Starship Troopers did its whole run. Even adjusting for inflation, that's a pretty big difference.

Posted by Chris O. | July 6, 2008 11:28 PM

You thought Starship troopers had redeeming qualities?

Posted by adhocheretic | July 6, 2008 11:33 PM

I went to see Wall-E and Hancock. The former is every bit as good as everyone says.

Wall-E was indeed excellent, but I think it suffers from the same crucial flaw that Pixar has recently hit with both The Incredibles and Ratatouille: namely, there's much more to admire than to love.

While I am impressed by the technological virtuosity, thematic strength, and minor details of all films -- and would recommend them to anyone -- they lack the nebulous "rewatchability" element that make Finding Nemo, Monster's Inc, and the Toy Story movies some of the greatest films of recent memory.

Would love to know if anyone else feels the same way, as I can't really put my finger on what's been missing. Maybe I'm just getting too old and grouchy, but I think the earlier films had much more natural sentimental pull, rather than being purely exercises of overly self-conscious brilliance.

Posted by right | July 6, 2008 11:47 PM

"The Starship Troopers of Summer '08 is supposed to be a compliment?"

High praise, in fact.

Posted by Hlem | July 6, 2008 11:50 PM

I think its pretty simple. At the end of the day, what was Wall-E about? Not much. That's a serious limitation in a film. But how much rewatchability do you really need to make money making films? I think their bottom line will be just fine.

Posted by mpowell | July 6, 2008 11:53 PM

I really liked the first part of "Wall-E," but the stuff on the space ship left me bored (except for the lovely 'dance' scene.)

Posted by Misplaced Patriot | July 6, 2008 11:53 PM

Yeah, Hancock made a boatload of money. There's a reason they pay Will Smith $20 million a film. This is his EIGHTH film in a row to open at number 1.

Posted by matt g | July 6, 2008 11:55 PM

"Hudson Hawk" was also "an innovative and actually pretty arty film miscast as a genre summer blockbuster that [was] a critical and commercial failure," but it remains, alas, under-appreciated.

Posted by Bill C | July 7, 2008 12:06 AM

You realize, of course, that Wall-E and Battlestar Galactica have essentially the same ending?

The long lost remnant of humanity is trying to return to a devastated Earth, and the biggest obstacle in their way are intelligent machines.

Posted by Greg Abbott | July 7, 2008 12:09 AM

Hudson Hawk sucked. I had blissfully forgotten it 'til Bill C reminded me of its existence again. Thanks for nothing.

Posted by DMonteith | July 7, 2008 12:13 AM

Well, then, that means you missed the epic final between Federer and Nadal. It was one for the record books.

Posted by evie | July 7, 2008 12:14 AM

I just saw Iron Man and it felt like an overlong before-the-credits backstory filler to a real film. Too bad the real movie never started, there were just those loving lingering long long long takes of screws getting screwed tighter. And preteen boy wish fulfillment fantasy. A honking lot of it, even considering this is a Hollywood summer super hero film.

Luckily I didn't pay for this crap out of my own pocket.

Posted by kvenlander | July 7, 2008 12:17 AM

I actually laughed to myself when I read Matt's claim that Hancock would be a commercial failure. Man, that's some ace punditry there. The biggest misread since the notion that Iraqis would great us with flowers and chocolates?

Posted by jbryan | July 7, 2008 12:21 AM

right: I think you're on to something there. I notice that you didn't mention Cars in your list; I liked it better than the other recent movies you listed.

I loved the bits in Wall-E with just robots; the bits with the Captain and other humans were a step down for me.

I think part of the problem is that Pixar has trouble making human characters that audiences can really identify with, so the more actually human the characters are, the less realistic they become. Perhaps this is the uncanny valley effect, but I think it also has to do with how they script actually human vs. anthropomorphic characters.

And I quite enjoyed Hancock. The arc of the movie seems to turn some people off, though; the people I went with didn't enjoy it as much as I did.

Posted by Jason | July 7, 2008 12:56 AM

In response to some of the previous comments:

wall•e is the rare commercially successful, mainstream movie that is about feelings and form rather than events (the plot.) the first 45 minutes or so are going to mark an entire generation of kids – and, probably, adults, alike.

starship troopers is an ironic and/or sarcastic movie. (if anyone can explain which, i'd be much obliged.) as a result, it was and is often derided as bombastic and shallow. (it's the flip side of Galaxy Quest.) i haven't yet seen Hancock – and will, based on Matt's endorsement – but I'm guessing that it has some of the same qualities along with, apparently, similarly bad reviews.

i'm surprised Hancock is doing well at the box office having read some early reviews. but, then, it's not quite the Fourth of July without a Will Smith blockbuster.

Posted by jose | July 7, 2008 1:59 AM

Also went to see Hancock today. I agree with you to a point. However, I felt a bit like I was seeing the idea for a good movie - good acting, excellent cast, interesting idea, an interesting arc, but the exposition was clunky (here's a guy on TV to tell us what happened next! here's another character to explain to us everything we need to know! Here they are again to finish off the exposition!) and the ending fight(s) were totally at odds with what I had been built up to want in the first hour of the movie. A superhero movie where I really don't care much about the end fight is a movie whose ending I could - potentially - not see coming.

Posted by Jason | July 7, 2008 2:58 AM

I like how Hancock started out as a high-concept super-hero summer movie but took a sharp turn somewhere past the mid-point and became something else entirely.

Also, Will Smith might be this generation's greatest actor. His recent work, especially in Pursuit of Happyness, I Am Legend, and now Hancock have been amazing.

Posted by Herb | July 7, 2008 3:08 AM

Biggest Summer Move is The Dark Knight.

Everyone loves Batman.

Posted by Jack | July 7, 2008 6:48 AM

The first 40 minutes or so of Hancock was pretty good, but then it turned into a completely different movie, one I really didn't care about. The beginning was setting us up for a movie that never came.

Posted by amos | July 7, 2008 7:19 AM

right: I think you're on to something there. I notice that you didn't mention Cars in your list; I liked it better than the other recent movies you listed.

I haven't actually seen Cars, so not sure how that fits in.

Posted by right | July 7, 2008 7:32 AM

"The Starship Troopers of Summer '08 is supposed to be a compliment?"

Hell yes.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | July 7, 2008 7:36 AM

When a leather coated Doogie Houser announces "It feels fear!", Starship Troopers justified its idiocies.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 7, 2008 9:40 AM

If Toy Story were to come out now instead of being the very first all-computer-animated feature, it would be seen as a good, but not spectacular, kids movie - another Flushed Away or Over the Hedge. Pixar's movies have always been the leading edge of computer animation features, but the genre as a whole has moved along a good way. Wall-E will make trainloads of money and get plenty of rewatchings once it hits DVD.

Posted by jimBOB | July 7, 2008 10:39 AM

The problem with Hancock's low ratings seems to be that reviewers went into it expecting a huge metaphor and/or standard superhero comic book tale. They missed an absolutely delightful movie that stands on its own merits. ... And, yes, I agree that as time passes some of those movie wonks will realize their errors.

Posted by Jack D. | July 7, 2008 11:11 AM

Hey "right", I agree with you 100%. Ratatouille and Wall-E were both well made, admirable movies that were enjoyable enough but that neither I nor my kids loved. I have no burning desire to see either again. I feel a little more positively about The Incredibles, but probably just because that film was not critically overhyped to the same extent.

The greatest irony of Starship Troopers is the number of people who seem to feel they somehow distinguish themselves by trashing it. If you didn't like Starship Troopers then you probably just didn't get it. That doesn't necessarily mean you're thick, but it does mean you have a limited grasp of irony and/or a very limited appreciation of how fascist propaganda works. Here's a hint - the humans are not the good guys in that movie.

I do understand why die-hard Heinlein fans might hate that movie - but rewatch it pretending it has nothing to do with Heinlein (which is actually the case) and you might like it better.

Posted by vanya | July 7, 2008 11:21 AM

starship troopers is an ironic and/or sarcastic movie.

Starship Troopers tried to do what Robocop had done 10 years earlier -- be a kick-ass action movie and a satire at the same time. That's a hell of a tightrope to walk. Robocop pulled it off (mostly) and Troopers didn't.

Posted by Roddy McCorley | July 7, 2008 11:21 AM

I'd say Robocop is a better action movie (more engaging, you actually like the main character), Starship Troopers is a better satire (deeper, more biting and vicious, and manages to mock most of its own audience).

Posted by vanya | July 7, 2008 11:29 AM

Nothing worse then effete bloggers commenting on Pixar films. These are essentially cartoons. Cartoons don't follow many rules and neither does Pixar. Their 'worst' cartoon is better than most feature films.

Posted by judson | July 7, 2008 11:37 AM

When a leather coated Doogie Houser announces "It feels fear!", Starship Troopers justified its idiocies.

Here is a teaching moment. It was Doogie in a SS-type uniform ...

Let me add Starship Troopers had great big ship battles and very good effects for the time as well ( great compositing but the CG stuff is a little old, "real models" were used throughout ) as being a zany fascist romp. Give it another chance people :-)

Posted by blank_stare | July 7, 2008 11:51 AM

Props to Jonah for reminding that Starship troopers was a zany Liberal romp. Sorry bout dat.

Posted by blank_stare | July 7, 2008 12:03 PM

amos nails it. I was pleasantly surprised how well the studio has kept the lid on the twist at the end, but that completely changed the whole type of movie on the screen. It felt like the resolution came after half an hour, so they needed another resolution at the end. The lack of a consistent super villain, which helps drive the plot of superhero movies, also probably helped lead to a script that lacked a bit of direction.

Posted by Reality Man | July 7, 2008 12:39 PM

Matt's main point was that the critics hated Hancock (which they did). It's touching that you are all so desperate to defend the honor of Will Smith's box office, though.

Posted by Walt | July 7, 2008 12:57 PM

Starship Troopers is, I think, the greatest anti-war movie ever made. It's satire is biting and, I think, if you didn't get that first time round, it deserves to be re-watched. As someone said, the humans are the bad guys.

I loved Wall E and thought it was the best Pixar movie to date. I think that it has a warmth and heart that very few films I've ever seen can match. Yes, the first 45 mins are truly incredible, but the rest of it holds up well, too.

Posted by Samson | July 7, 2008 1:00 PM

Starship Troopers is, I think, the greatest anti-war movie ever made. It's satire is biting and, I think, if you didn't get that first time round, it deserves to be re-watched. As someone said, the humans are the bad guys.

The movie was too tied to the plot of the Henlein novel to be an effective anti-war movie. The bugs destroyed Buenos Aires. It isn't so much that the humans are the bad guys so much that the good guys are fascists.

Posted by Lemmy Caution | July 7, 2008 1:28 PM

Starship Troopers is the Liberal Fascism of liberal fascism.

Posted by Another Luke | July 7, 2008 1:40 PM

True, true.

I really liked the first part of "Wall-E," but the stuff on the space ship left me bored (except for the lovely 'dance' scene.)

Posted by Misplaced Patriot | July 6, 2008 11:53 PM

By the time we get to the Axiom, I felt like I was being beaten about the head and shoulders with "message". Gah! I am reminded of this TMJ lyric:

"We catch on. Don't have to YELL IT!"

Posted by ajw_93 | July 7, 2008 1:52 PM

The bugs destroyed Buenos Aires.

Yes, but if you watch the film carefully, you'll realize that was a defensive strike launched after humans had already begun encroaching on the bug worlds. It was textbook "blowback."

Posted by vanya | July 7, 2008 2:03 PM

_Starship Troopers_ became respected? I must have missed that.

The trouble with Troopers wasn't that it was "sarcastic," or "ironic," or "satirical," although those things rarely help out at the box office. The trouble was that it was schizophrenic. It wanted to both be above the rah-rah jingoism, and yet wallow in it. To sneer down at the sort of people who go to big budget shoot-em-ups, and indulge that same lust for pyrotechnics. It was a very, very stupid movie, and satire has to be smart.

Compare _Doctor Strangelove_ for an example of what _Troopers_, perhaps, wanted to be...but didn't want badly enough.

Posted by Craig | July 7, 2008 2:56 PM

Nope. Craig you missed the point. The brilliance of ST is that the entire film is told straight from the fascist point of view. There's no winking or overt condescending mocking like you find in Strangelove. There's simply an unreliable narrator, as there are plenty of hints throughout the movie that the real story is not the one you're being told. I can see the argument that all this is a bit too po-mo, and that Verhoeven is making the audience do the work of bringing intelligence to the picture while he is actually just playing fascist for kicks. But that doesn't bother me. Maybe I am overlaying too much of my own reading onto the film, but all the satire is actually in the film if you look for it. I don't think an artsy overconceptualized reading of "Speed Racer" or "Rush Hour II" would work as well.

Posted by vanya | July 7, 2008 3:25 PM

Vanya, I just can't help thinking that you bring more brainpower to the analysis of that movie than Verhoeven did to its creation. Certainly the movie was trying to be clever at points, but I think it failed, because it never chose to address the contradictions at its center: it wanted to have its cake and eat it, right to the end.

Tho' it hasn't been filmed, I much prefer Haldeman's novel _Forever War_ as a considered response to Heinlein's text. And I don't doubt you could find the reading that makes Speed Racer an Aeneid for our times.

Posted by Craig | July 7, 2008 3:37 PM

Starship Troopers wasn't directly about Fascism or militarism, it seems to me. It seemed to me to be about the way that youthful idealism is exploited by the state.

Do you want to know more?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 7, 2008 4:00 PM

All this passion about ST. How come I never heard of it? I am going to have to go out and rent it.

Posted by Rob | July 7, 2008 5:13 PM

I'm with Vanya on this one. The fact that one can constructively expend so much brainpower on it is testament to how smart and good it is. The fact it didn't address the contradictions is part of its strength as satire - it really is full-bore, with no blatant winking at the audience. But knowing Verhoven as we do and what he's been through in life, I think it's a safe bet that the snippets we get (the fact that humans clearly started the war, for instance) are the real "message" for want of a better term.

And yeah, BA being destroyed is part of the overall criticism of war and just how senselessly destructive it is.

All this said, is it really fair to bracket Hancock with ST?

Posted by Samson | July 7, 2008 5:41 PM

I'm curious as to how many people here realize that Thomas Harris' books, "Silence of the Lambs" and "Hannibal" (and "Red Dragon" before them) were satires, not thrillers - and the movies completely ignored all that.

I mean, Harris went all out in "Hannibal" to prove that - partly because he wanted to write a book that Dino De Laurentiis couldn't make into a movie. I mean, eating somebody's brains for dinner?

Even Jodie Foster, who normally is pretty sharp, in her explanations of Clarice Starling completely missed the point that Starling was basically a pathetic Fed bitch. That was how Harris wrote the character and deliberately so. All his "heroes" are pathetic characters - only Lector is treated with respect.

I've seen "Wanted" twice now and may see it again. That's the best movie out at the moment. It's plot is completely insane, but that's the point. There's a considerable amount of humor for an insane action flick.

And you can't go wrong with Angelina Jolie as an assassin. She doesn't have much dialog but she can just stand there and awesome out everybody else on the screen with that face (except maybe Morgan Freeman, who holds his own in terms of presence on screen.)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 7, 2008 8:23 PM

I'm pretty shocked Matt went to see two movies on a day one of the greatest sporting events of the decade (Nadal d. Federer 64 64 67 67 97) occurred.

I do think THE INCREDIBLES (and, yes, STARSHIP TROOPERS) are pretty memorable and repeatably watchable films.

Posted by Mad Professah | July 7, 2008 11:31 PM

Craig, you are insane. Verhoeven has Doogie Himmler in an SS greatcoat at the end of the movie reading the bug's mind and declaring it afraid, and your explanation for this is... it's an accident? That Verhoeeven didn't know what he was making? Verhoven spent his childhood in Nazi-occupied Holland; it's a safe bet that very few of the details that inform Vanya's reading of Starship Troopers were added accidentally. Frankly, Vanya's reading isn't the end of serious commentary on the movie, but the beginning. Any commentary that doesn't even make it that far can't be considered serious.

Posted by NBarnes | July 8, 2008 2:30 AM

Saw Hancock tonight. Pretty good flick. Charlize is hot as usual. Will is funny in the first half and a damn good actor all the way through, as usual.

I liked the bank robber guy - a major asshole but no dummy - except of course for trying to take on a superhero.

Great special effects. Dialog is good.

I'll have to think about what the "moral" of the story was supposed to be - other than "it's better to be human than not", which of course, in my view, is complete bullshit. Given the ending, of course, one could take the opposite viewpoint.

Definitely recommend going to see it. It's clear why it's made a ton of money so far - people are recommending it to their friends and also people know Will Smith and Charlize Theron are good actors.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 8, 2008 4:19 AM

Hancock wasn't just bad, it was horrifically bad. They took an interesting premise that explored the lonliness (and anger) a superhero feels due to the uniqueness of his power (that was actually SOMEWHAT subtle) and, in one moment, flipped the script and made it a typical, terrible comic book movie that completely ignored all the work they did in the first 40 minutes. All the while filling it with this ridiculous story about their past. I thought it would be a movie about a superhero coming to grips with his anger, but it turned out to be a dumb, typical cat mouse game filled with an inane second/third act filled with horrible dialogue, dumb logic, motiveless villains, and general awfulness.

If the twist had been that they watch paint dry for the remaining hour, it would have been a better choice. How anyone enjoyed that is beyond me.

Posted by Brett | July 8, 2008 5:19 PM

Just a comment on Starship Troopers. Verhoven wanted to write an anti-fascist satire, and someone pointed out that the world he created resembled Heinlein's Starship Troopers. So, they got the rights to the name, but the story was the complete opposite to the jingoism in Heinlein's original (which completely confused me the first time I read ST after seeing the movie...

The humans claimed that the bugs attacked Buenos Aries, in order to have carte blanche to carry out their war of aggression. But, there is suggestion in the movie that it was just an accident; the bugs had nothing to do with it. Somehow prescient I think (as was the last couple seasons of Star Trek DS9)

Posted by james k | July 8, 2008 9:12 PM