[Movie Monday] Hancock

Movie: Hancock

Genre: Action/Fantasy

Welcome to the second Movie Monday of the week!

This time, our spotlight goes to one of Will Smith’s many action movies – Hancock!

John Hancock is not your average human. Just like Superman, he has the ability to fly, invulnerable, and has unhuman super strength. What’s more? He’s immortal.

Who wouldn’t want to have what he has?

Well, for starters, it may be easily said John Hancock himself for he has no memories of who he was, not even his own name, before he woke up in a hospital. And he is also known as an alcoholic, and the fact that he goes around and ends up destructing almost everything in plain sight, more so when he’s trying to stop crimes, he gets ridiculed by not just the media but also by the residents of Los Angeles.

That all changes the day he meets a public relations consultant by the name of Ray Embrey. Well, at least it changes only to a certain degree. Ray comes out of an unsuccessful meeting from having to pitch his All-Heart logo for corporations, he gets trapped on railroad tracks and nearly gets run over by a freight train. Hancock saves Ray, but because of his act, another driver nearly gets injured and all those that sees this jeers and sneers at him. Ray, being grateful for having his own life saved, defends Hancock by thanking him right then and there in the public. And for his actions, Ray even offers to change Hancock’s image and, against his own will, Hancock agrees.

Now, if you’re asking, “How can his image be changed when he’s done so much destruction?” ask yourself this. Superman ends up causing some damage, but for it happening over and over again, he gets ridiculed to the point where Superman agrees to disappear for good. Now let’s say that Superman goes into disappearance for good, what will happen then? Crime rates will most likely than not go up.

That was the situation with Hancock when he agreed to stay in prison for awhile to let the public experience what Los Angeles will be like without him. He gets called out by the Chief of Police, who’s seeking for help, and Hancock agrees to help. When he intercepts a bank robber and saves an injured officer all the while stopping the armed robbers and the leader, along with the mastermind of the robbery, Hancock gets praised tremendously by the public. Ray eventually brings Hancock into his own home for a dinner between the two of them and Ray’s wife, Mary. From the moment Mary and Hancock meets, she disapproves of Hancock rather greatly, but the three of them sit down for dinner with negative feelings all put aside.

It’s during the meal that Hancock discovers that he’s immortal by discovering that when he had been in the hospital before waking up with memory loss, he had actually been in the hospital with a coma for 8p years at the same age. And why remaining at the same age is unclear, and it’s because of that Hancock wants to know exactly where he comes from and of his origins.

Ray, of course, ends up passing out later due to overdrinking, and it’s then and only then when Hancock decides to tuck Ray into bed, he walks in on Mary to discover that she’s in the exact situation as him. She has all the same abilities as he does, and she herself is immortal. From this, he demands for answers to any and all questions he’s always had, which Mary refuses to answer. Hancock soon uses her secrets that she’s been keeping from Ray against her to get all the answers he ever wanted.

Is all what Hancock ever wanted to find out lies with Mary? Or is it all being kept a secret for it’s best?

Who exactly is Ray’s wife Mary and where is she from?

More importantly, who exactly is Hancock and where did she come from? And why is it that he has absolutely no recollection of who he was before the 80 year coma and how he even had gotten there?