comment #1

NDH says ...

I know when I need to see a film again to truly appreciate it. No Country for Old Men is a good example of one that benefits from repeat viewings. I don't need to see Hancock again to confirm my opinion that it's a piece of garbage.

comment #2

MoroccoMole says ...

I do so LOVE it when film critics tell me that I'm myopic because I have committed the cardinal sin of disagreeing with them.

Ass.

comment #3

Nick J says ...

For the first and probably last time ever, I find myself siding with Poland over Wells.

comment #4

ROTC says ...

"If they still don't see how well the tapestry is woven, I will leave them to their myopia."

Typical Poland review, always saying, "If you don't agree with me, there's something seriously wrong with you."

I'm told he even did this to his new wife on their wedding night: "Listen, you uncooperative baby, I know what I'm doing here. If this isn't working for you, you need to head to the clinic ASAP for some vaginal rejuvenation."

comment #5

Geoff says ...

I just hope Poland keeps writing about HANCOCK like he did with the MATRIX films. Hilarious.

comment #6

Rev. Slappy says ...

I worked on Hancock a little bit, so I was well aware of the big surprise and yes, knowing that it's coming I can see how it is woven into the movie. But that third act is just horrendous and makes no logical sense at all. SPOILER: Theron doesn't want her husband to find out she has these powers so she blows a huge hole in her house and then gets involved in a major property destroying brawl on Hollywood Boulevard? And where the hell did the tornadoes come from? I rather liked the first hour of Hancock, then it goes totally off the rails.

comment #7

Dan says ...

Although I will most definitely refrain from seeing HANCOCK again, and while I do not think it is 'excellent.' Poland is right when he says the film has been undeservedly maligned by critics. It does offer some interesting ideas, much more so than, say, INCREDIBLE HULK, but it just wasn't executed terribly well.

comment #8

tophertilson says ...

I'm with you, Dan. It's a mess. It's horribly flawed. There are gaps in logic so huge you could drive a truck through them.. The shaky-cam crap is getting old. And yet I enjoyed it more than HULK or IRON MAN. At least it took risks. And as bizarr-o as that last third is, I applaud what it's attempting. Aside from WALL-E, has there been another movie this summer that hasn't played it safe?

comment #9

George Prager says ...

So what's the deal...he dies at the end? And Charlize is a superhero? Poland writes like a 9th grader.

comment #10

nemo says ...

Tapestry? Did he use the word tapestry? To describe a superhero movie? Starring Will Smith?

Would you use the word tapestry to describe even a superhero movie you liked?

Tapestry?!?

comment #11

CinemaPhreek says ...

Dan - with you as well. How critics could give a pass to HULK yet decide that HANCOCK was the film that needed to shit on... I fail to grasp the logic there. Talk about third acts that make no sense.

And here is the better barometer, one day after seeing those other films, I had stopped thinking about them. At least HANCOCK went for something a little more interesting.

comment #12

Jay T. says ...

Poland is defending it? Now I KNOW it sucks...

comment #13

MilkMan says ...

I feel like every movie released recently has some kind of "twist" that has to be safegaurded. But these aren't twists, they're just absurd plot developments. Charlize is his wife? They're Gods? They used to be married in the 1930s or something? This movie made no sense. None. It's storytelling by committee, if the committee was made up of three rich old men who would rather not be late for their pedicures that sit down and think of something that makes sense. It's mythology for people who eat too much sushi and fuck too many coke-head models.

comment #14

bluefugue says ...

It's a bit arbitrary to say something with superheroes in it can't be a "tapestry." The comic book Watchmen deserves to be called a "tapestry" and plenty of better things ("masterpiece" comes to mind). Maybe the movie will or won't live up to that, but it's not the superheroes that are the determining factor...

comment #15

p.Vice says ...

I guess in Poland's little world of corproate marketing, consumerism goes hand-in-hand with blithe optimism. "If you didn't like our product the first time, try it again! You just might change your mind!"

comment #16

LYT says ...

In fairness, P.Vice, few of us would eat our vegetables, or drink alcohol or coffee, if we hadn't tried them more than once in our lives.

comment #17

actionman says ...

I loved the film. I can see why some people won't like it but it's the best big-budget movie of the summer so far

comment #18

YND says ...

Regarding the big 3rd Act SPOILER... I love that SEVERAL major reviews I've read (including Denby's rave, I believe) say something like "Turns out that Theron and Smith share something in common, but I won't say what..."

What the hell else COULD it be? She's an alcoholic? I mean, if I go see the movie and it turns out that Charlize ISN'T a superhero, I'll eat my words... but this sort of thing seems like a pretty big, pretty intentional spoiler. (Maybe on the part of boosters like Poland who feel knowing it in advance helps appreciation of the film?)

comment #19

cjKennedy says ...

The only problem with Hancock is that it didn't go far enough in overturning the fucking boring Marvel superhero movies. It should've been R rated. It should've been the Bad Santa of superhero movies.

As it is, it was kind of flaccid, but it was still more interesting than The Incredible Hulk.

comment #20

tophertilson says ...

"It should've been the Bad Santa of superhero movies."

Yes! That's exactly what it should have aimed for. All this talk of spoilers makes me wonder though -- did I enjoy it more than most because the twist was semi-spoiled for me (see YND's post above)?

comment #21

rgmax99 says ...

HANCOCK is a terrific flick. All of the shit-dumping on this very well-made 'blockbuster' is completely unwarranted.

The third act WORKS, but because of all of the internet dweebs and selected smart-ass critics thinking themselves hip and cool to take down a Will Smith July 4th extravaganza, the film will always have a completely unwarranted tainted reputation.

Fuck Rotten Tomatoes: HANCOCK is head and shoulders above any of the big studio bullshit that seeps into American cinemas these days.

comment #22

Terry McCarty says ...

Weighing in on HANCOCK:
Saw it this afternoon in a large and sparsely-attended Chatsworth multiplex.
The first hour was fair-to-mediocre at best.
As for the third act, it ranks down there with Sony's edict that Mike Nichols turn the third act of WOLF into a werewolf smackdown.

For the money Akiva probably got to do rewrites, it would have made more sense to come up with a third act where Charlize has superpowers and is hiding in suburbia from her supervillainous husband (say, Jason Issacs or Alan Rickman) and Will, being one of the last of the long-lived superhero breed, comes to her rescue (or fighta by her side)--with all the CGI overkill that Sony demands. This would have been preferable to the puny-villain-powered, ludicrous third act moviegoers will see this weekend.

My wife took a class re learning to be a reader at AFI long ago. She told me about Dale Launer's original script for BLIND DATE and how dumbed-down and relatively unamusing the final film directed by Blake Edwards was.

Maybe HANCOCK can be used in future screenwriting classes as an example of what not to do when setting out to create a potential-tentpole blockbuster.

comment #23

Walter says ...

In fairness, Hancock does have some good ideas. It's just that none of them are executed very well at all. It's a dull film that becomes nonsensical. I went with a friend whose favorite actor is Will Smith, and he HATED the movie.

comment #24

folio says ...

I think Hancock and Speed Racer will likely go down as the most unafairly maligned films of the year.

In Hancock, it is hard to see how anyone could have missed the connection between the two superheroes when they first meet. As a result, the third act is less a twist and more an "oh right" moment.

For what little it is worth, the reason the house gets a big hole in it is the same reason that they (she) affects the weather and why they fight - they have a primal connection. They represent powerful forces that affect each other.

comment #25

Dave Polands Gut says ...

This is Poland's new Matrix 2.

comment #26

folio says ...

Matrix Reloaded was a good film - it was Revolutions that was the travesty as it completely undermined the setup from 2 which was that they had never really left the Matrix but had instead been siphoned off into a sort of error trap. It felt to me like they ran out of ideas, interest or courage in 3.