Hancock

Theatrical Release Date: 2008 07 02 (USA)

UPC: 043396281257

Studio: Sony Pictures

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Profanity, Substance Abuse, Sci-Fi Violence]

Summary: A hard-drinking lush finds himself thrust into superhero mode in director Peter Berg's unconventional look at the private life of a crime-fighter. Will Smith stars as the embittered do-gooder whose lifestyle is more akin to a rock star than a role model, and who has grown as disillusioned with his once-admiring public as they have of him. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Category: Comedy

Features: cc
Unrated version of the film with footage not seen in theaters
Superhuman: The making of Hancock
Seeing the Future: An in-depth look at the scenes of Hancock using pre-visualization, film and behind-the-scenes footage
Building a Better Hero: Special effects featurette
Bumps and Bruises: Stunts featurette
Mere Mortals: Behind the scenes with "Dirty Pete" - The directing style of Peter Berg

Hancock

Format: DVD

Release Date: 11/25/2008

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 2.40:1

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1

Runtime: 102 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French,Spanish

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Hancock
1. Chapter 1 [3:01]
2. Chapter 2 [8:42]
3. Chapter 3 [2:14]
4. Chapter 4 [3:25]
5. Chapter 5 [6:34]
6. Chapter 6 [4:23]
7. Chapter 7 [3:43]
8. Chapter 8 [3:32]
9. Chapter 9 [4:22]
10. Chapter 10 [2:39]
11. Chapter 11 [2:34]
12. Chapter 12 [1:19]
13. Chapter 13 [3:16]
14. Chapter 14 [4:12]
15. Chapter 15 [8:51]
16. Chapter 16 [2:27]
17. Chapter 17 [2:52]
18. Chapter 18 [2:41]
19. Chapter 19 [1:26]
20. Chapter 20 [2:44]
21. Chapter 21 [2:21]
22. Chapter 22 [2:43]
23. Chapter 23 [1:14]
24. Chapter 24 [4:02]
25. Chapter 25 [2:34]
26. Chapter 26 [2:52]
27. Chapter 27 [1:52]
28. Chapter 28 [9:15]

Nathan Southern

Hancock sports a premise that must have seemed loaded with potential on paper. Will Smith as not simply a superhero, but a drunken superhero? The inebriated anti-Superman? What could be more explosively funny, after all, than a fog-brained, intoxicated caped crusader, klutzily lunging around in the skies, crashing headfirst into billboards on the Los Angeles freeway and causing all kinds of wanton destruction? It isn't difficult to see why Columbia greenlit this one. But this big-budget special-effects-saturated comic fantasy is far from a classic, and the sequences in it that deliver a genuine impact exist so far outside the sphere of comedy that perhaps the producers should have done away with the farcical element altogether. To be more specific, the above one-sentence premise is actually misleading: Hancock incorporates not one but two films - it begins as a farce about a superhero lush, then doesn't quite know where to go with that, swaps genres and derails into a far more interesting movie. Smith, of course, is John Hancock, an Angelino endowed with the abilities of supersonic and interstellar flight, unlimited strength, and an immunity to all forms of injury. He's also a crass, foul-mouthed, lazy, booze-soaked nightmare with little regard for anyone other than himself - his heroic exploits leave a trail of careless and excessive destruction, such as an incident where he hijacks a carload of terrorists, lifts the car thousands of feet off the ground, and then impales it (terrorists and all) on the needle of a skyscraper. All of this brouhaha, of course, royally tees off both taxpayers and Los Angeles city officials, who have long since grown so jaded with Hancock's outrageous exploits that they want him put away for a long, long time. There are a few (read: very few) moments of comic glory in these early stages, and one would be hard-pressed not to be chuckle at the sight of Hancock in mid-flight with a massive bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand (an inspired and outrageously funny image), or the sight of Hancock enjoying "spaghetti madness" with a suburban family and violently cramming mounds of pasta and meatballs into his mouth like the biggest slob that ever walked. (Shades of Montenegro). But 95% of the humor in the first half of the movie feels both lazy and stupid; most of the film's "comic highlights" consist of scenes where Hancock's taunters repeatedly goad him into outrageous acts of violence by calling him an 'asshole' - not exactly unfettered comic inspiration, let alone when it is reiterated multiple times. The film scrapes the bottom of the gutter in one of the opening scenes, when it assigns that language to a four or five-year-old boy. About twenty-five minutes in - when a washed-up PR executive named Ray Embrey (a miscast Jason Bateman) crisscrosses paths with Hancock and carries out an ingenious plan to "improve" his image by cleaning him up - one wonders how in the world the movie can sustain itself, especially after Hancock follows suit so quickly. It does, and then some, by pulling one unforeseen card out of its deck - a massive plot twist not given away in any of the movie's trailers or write-ups. I won't spoil the movie by disclosing it here, but will only state that the comedy basically disappears from the film about 50 minutes in, and that - if it becomes a far more conventional superhero movie in terms of doing away with Hancock's slobbery - it also unveils a surprisingly complex and thoughtful backstory for Hancock, one with epic undercurrents, as well as strands of heartbreaking pathos, romance, enhanced psychological complexity (including a subconscious reason for his boozing) and historical implication. The degree to which director Peter Berg (The Kingdom) handles these sincere and earnest moments adroitly strikes one as so convincing and so astonishing after the ineptitude of the first half hour that, again, one cannot shake the feeling that he should just lose the comedy altogether - that he's working in the wrong genre here. Unfortunately, the picture sets up such interesting implications in terms of what it does with John Hancock's backstory that the ending feels like a cop-out, both unresolved and half-assed; in terms of where it leaves the other characters, it raises far more questions than it can even begin to answer, and Berg and his scriptwriters fail to even try. The performances feel uneven; Smith is engaging as usual, but Bateman delivers an absolutely atrocious portrayal that surely must have left the director and producers gagging helplessly. He interprets Ray Embrey as a kind of whiny and ineffectual weakling, a loser wimp whose ability to attract his dynamic spouse, Mary (Charlize Theron) is as much of a mystery as his ability, from what we see of his one PR campaign, to sustain a home in the valley and support a wife and child. Theron, however, virtually walks away with the movie; interpreting Mary as a fierce, angry and impassioned woman, she brings far more depth, resonance and dimension to the character than the material even begins to deserve, and again (as in Monster) proves why she is one of Hollywood's most disciplined and underutilized actresses. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Cast and Crew: Peter Berg  Director 
Will Smith  Producer 
Ian Bryce  Executive Producer 
Michael Mann  Producer 
Akiva Goldsman  Producer 
Richard Saperstein  Executive Producer 
Jonathan Mostow  Executive Producer 
John Powell  Composer (Music Score) 
James Lassiter  Producer 
Vince Gilligan  Screenwriter 
Vy Vincent Ngo  Screenwriter 
Will Smith  Actor 
Charlize Theron  Actor 
Jason Bateman  Actor 
Eddie Marsan  Actor 
Johnny Galecki  Actor 
Thomas Lennon  Actor 
David Mattey  Actor 
Jae Head  Actor 
Maetrix Fitten  Actor 
Hayley Marie Norman  Actor 
Dorothy Cecchi  Actor 
Michelle Lemon  Actor 
Akiva Goldsman  Actor 
Michael Mann  Actor 
Brad Leland  Actor 
Trieu Tran  Actor 
Darrell Foster  Actor 
Liz Wicker  Actor 
Taylor Gilbert  Actor 
Caroll Tohme  Actor 
Barbara Ali  Actor 
Ryan Radis  Actor 
Elizabeth Dennehy  Actor 
Daren Dowler  Actor 
John Frazier  Actor 
Daeg Faerch  Actor 
Matthew King  Actor 
Martin Magdaleno  Actor 
Ronald W. Howard  Actor 
Gregg Daniel  Actor 
Nancy Grace  Actor 
Atticus Shaffer  Actor 
Aaron Henderson  Actor 
Huy Nguyen  Actor 
Mary-Jessica Pitts  Actor 
Kalee St. Clair  Actor 
Don Gibb  Actor 
Ralph Richeson  Actor 
Allan Havey  Actor 
Timothy Brennen  Actor 
Anthony Ledesma  Actor 
Steven Pierce  Actor 
Dominic Prampin  Actor 
Daniel Quinn  Actor 
Mars Crain  Actor 
Jack Axelrod  Actor 
Eddie Fernandez  Actor 
Martin Klebba  Actor 
Richard W. Gallegos  Actor 
Marc Geschwind  Actor 
Rob Maron  Actor 
Aisha Jau  Actor 
Pritam Singh  Actor 
Cher Calvin  Actor 
Bill McMullen  Actor 

Country: USA