This Week In Cinema [Wanted and Hancock Impressions]

The past few weeks have been fairly amazing for the box office, what with big titles like Wall-E, Get Smart, Wanted, and Hancock dropping on we, the eager and expecting audience. These past seven days for me, however, have been fairly disappointing. I say fairly because 2 out of the 3 new movies I went to see, Wall-E being the one good film, were pretty much garbage. This is just another instance in a long line of instances, *cough* Spiderman 3 and Transformers *cough*, where intake and quality just don't match up.




Let me first begin by saying that I "wanted" to see a good film with cool effects. I "wanted" good plot and a nice little twist that cleared away all of the fog behind said plot. I "wanted" to see the amazing Angelina Jolie in yet another "bad girl" role that showcased her bad girl... ness? Well, all puns aside, I got the latter in eye fulls. Angelina Jolie was an excellent cast for the sly and sexy Fox. Everything else, however, fell far far below par.

The main character's voice annoyed me at every juncture, which really sucked because he was the narrator of the film as well. This really surprised me seeing that Morgan Freeman was one of the main characters. In all honesty, I thought Morgan Freeman deserved a larger role in the film and the director stopped short of allowing him to be the fantastic actor that he is. Anyways, the main character's narration was also poorly executed because his script as narrator felt like an attempt to mirror Fight Club's token philosophical cynicism, but landed far short in light of not only the character's immaturity, but his lackluster portrayal of events as well. Another shortcoming I noticed, and it really wasn't hard, was that the plot made no real sense. Especially after the twist. It's really sad when the plot makes more sense before the truth is revealed. And last of all, the scene transitioning was terrible. I mean it was awful. I couldn't tell if it was days passing, or just minutes. At one point in the film I swear on my life I heard Morgan Freeman say "That was some montage wasn't it?"

I am awarding Wanted a glum 2 and 1/2 stars out of five because it really failed to deliver plot-wise. It pulled the trigger, but there was just no bang.




While Hancock failed to deliver nearly as much as Wanted did, my biggest problem was not with the film itself, but with the trailers. It has become more and more common nowadays for the movie trailers to show so much of the film that moviegoers like myself are really only going to the theater for an elaboration on the events. This saddens me because it feels like we are being robbed of the joys of experience all in the name of advertising. I noticed it to a great extent with Hancock and I am noticing it again with upcoming films like Hellboy 2 and The Dark Knight. We're just being shown too much.

Moving back to the film, I found Hancock to be entertaining and somewhat humorous... for the first half. The second half of the film was so tied up in itself that it scarcely made any real sense. The film turned from a partially believable story about a superhero with amnesia and a love for liquor to a romantic tragedy full of gods, goddesses, and a man with a hook for a hand. I really enjoyed the action, and I thought that Will and David did a great job, but I really believe the backstory could have gone a lot deeper than it did. Yes, I know Charlize Theron was in film as well, but I really think that her character was ruined due to the bad writing. I mean, the majority of her screen time was filled with close ups and eye shifting. I really wanted to scream out in the theater "She knows something that we don't. We get it! Move on!"

I award Hancock 3 stars out of 5 for its humor and stunning visuals, but illogical second half. At one point during the film I had absolutely no idea what was going on and actually wondered whether or not I should even care.