Review: 'Hancock' - Pick and Mix Genres

Script by Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan

I don’t think anyone was surprised that the new Will Smith vehicle, ‘Hancock’ smashed the $100 million barrier on its opening weekend in the States. This creates a new record for Smith, the first star to have eight consecutive openings gross over $100 million. But what will be more interesting will be to see how the public reacts after seeing the film.

We saw the film last night and we’re rather surprised at how unrepresentative the trailer turned out to be. The first half of the film contains all the humour (most of which was in the trailer) while the second half turns to much darker territory – threatening to become a standard superhero flick with barely a laugh in sight. Of course, I’m not going to give away the twist here that signals the complete change in tone, but it is there, is unexpected and I know my family felt we had seen a different film to what we expected.

Creating expectation and hype for a film has always thrown up interesting dilemmas. Obviously, with ‘Hancock’, there was potential to sell it to the public as another Will Smith comedy – and everyone I know who saw the trailer laughed out loud and immediately wanted to see it. But did the trailer misrepresent the film?

It is quite common for a trailer to take most of its signature moments from the first half of a film. The first half is usually where the fun of the initial concept is played out, so it provides the best material to get that concept across to an audience in the shortest way possible. ‘Hancock’ is no different. Virtually the entire trailer is cut from the first half. But the problem with ‘Hancock’ is that the second half is a very different film. Once the gag of the drunken derelict superhero has been played out for laughs, the story actually has to go somewhere, and where it decides to go is surprising. It certainly doesn’t go where this cynical movie-watcher expected the traditional formula to take it.

I think my issue with the marketing of the film is more a problem of the film rather than the language of modern trailers. The trailer certainly did what it was designed to achieve – brought people into the cinemas – by using the best tools in its arsenal – Will Smith and comedy. A more honest trailer may not have attracted the audience that gave Smith his new record. What this issue highlights is a weakness within the format and structure of the film itself and this can probably be traced back to the origins of the script before it was pulped by the Hollywood machine.

’Hancock’ started life as a spec script from Vincent Ngo entitled ‘Tonight He Comes’ (pdf file). The original draft was clearly not a comedy, but instead a dark and emotional tale of a superhero completely out of touch with the people he protects. Producers Michael Mann and Akiva Goldsman decided to transform the script into something with more mainstream appeal. New writers were brought on board before Vince Gilligan's rewrite finally got the green light. The comedy potential was exploited by exaggerating the lead character’s boorish behaviour. Some of the more adult themes were toned down. I would be very interested to read the original script to better decide whether I agree with these decisions or not. Yet, there is a niggling feeling that in processing the script through the Hollywood machine, the final result is maybe less coherent and effective than the original premise, even if ‘Hancock’ will undoubtedly attract higher audiences.

So, don’t go to ‘Hancock’ expecting a huge belly-buster of a comedy. There are plenty of laughs in there (even some not in the trailer), but also plenty of dark moments and some pretty bleak stuff towards the end. ‘Hancock’ would best be described as two films shoe-horned together; a comedy and an action blockbuster, never quite sure which it wants to be. It is a shame the two genres couldn’t be more satisfactorily blended instead of the complete 180 the film currently attempts.