"Hancock": A tale of three movies, none of them any good

Well, I guess it had to happen eventually. After a summer in which I've liked just about everything I've seen since "Iron Man" (with the caveat that I simply skipped several flicks on general principle), I've finally found a true stinker in "Hancock."

I mean, even M. Night's "The Happening" kept me laughing throughout at just how bad it is in stretches and therefore, I must confess, made me enjoy watching it a lot more than I could have possibly expected, but this one is just a lifeless - and pretty much soulless - creation.

I suppose my opinion doesn't matter too much since Will Smith+the Fourth of July still=mad money in the bank ($41.3 million BEFORE the actual holiday), but that doesn't mean I won't sound off anyway.

So, who's to blame for making this an almost singularly unwatchable mess? There's plenty to go around, but it has to start at the top with Mr. Smith himself this time.

I've had my bones to pick with him through the years, but I never really thought it would come down to him not being enough of an asshole to make a movie work.

However, after spending his entire career crafting his image as the black guy so nice that even the late Jesse Helms (sorry, but he's on my brain after reading his obituary) might invite him home to dinner, he simply doesn't have the edge - no matter how hard he tries - to play a character as innately unlikable as the seriously flawed hero "Hancock." So what you get is Will Smith walking around looking surly for 90 minutes or so, telling all the jokes you've already heard in the trailer and no more of any note. What a waste.

I suppose I would have been able to forgive this if director Peter Berg and writers Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan had been able to choose which direction they wanted to go in with this one. Either unable or unwilling to turn the once-promising premise into a real satire on the nature of heroes and our expectations of them, they instead let the movie just get more and more boring as Hancock is rehabilitated, until it reaches a "twist" ending that will just make you want to scream "wtf!" at the screen (I managed to refrain, but it took a whole lot of self-control!)

It certainly felt like they just reached a point where, after putting together 70 minutes or so of footage that goes absolutely nowhere, they all huddled and came up with the most ludicrous way possible to bring this to its mercifully quick end (though sequels are definitely already on the way.)

Jason Bateman does his best to wrest some laughs from his part as Hancock's PR man, and indeed succeeds at a few points, but he's just fighting a losing battle here. Charlize Theron, however, just looked even more confused by this maddening flick than I was.

And, as much as it pains my heart to say it, Berg's direction here is almost as bad as the story itself. Unsure where to point his camera at many points, he simply lets it spin around at least 360 degrees, never for any apparent reason. And lest anyone who's never been here before think I just had it in for "Hancock" from the start, that's simply untrue. I have nothing but love for Berg's "Friday Night Lights" and even more so the nearly perfect TV show that followed in it wake. But "Hancock" is simply an awful movie from start to finish.

Even so, there are surely great things to come very soon in superhero land, with Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" coming next week and then a little movie you may have heard of called "The Dark Knight" right after that, so keep hope alive. Peace out.

Demko's DVD shelf: TV's smartest show out this week

AMC is going to be airing the entire first season of "Mad Men" back-to-back-to .. well you get the idea on July 26 to prepare for the very welcome start of season two July 27 (wow .. new TV in the summer that doesn't involve someone doing a face-plant into a giant rubber ball!)

If you can't wait that long, and I certainly can't, you can pick up the seriously great first season now on DVD, making it easily my pick of the week.

The two things that set "Mad Men" apart from anything else on TV now are the writing and the simply first-rate acting. Creator Matthew Weiner and his writers don't just embrace the world it's set in, the "golden age" of Madison Avenue advertising in the early '60s, they revel in it. The term political correctness wouldn't be invented for another 30 years or so, so "Mad Men" gleefully dives into all the -isms you can think of and soaks them all in a vat of gin.

And the actors, from Emmy winner Don Draper (ad executive Jon Hamm) on down, just embrace the spirit of the era. The ladies of "Mad Men," especially Elisabeth Moss and January Jones, often outshine the hard-charging dudes around them. I can't recommend this one highly enough, just in case you couldn't tell! There are, however, a few other picks out there this week too, one I've seen and two I will very soon ...

City of Men
This one is not so much a sequel to "City of God" (often listed as my favorite movie of all time, if I'm forced to choose), but more as a follow-up to the great Brazilian "City of Men" TV series.

That series has been out on DVD for a while now, and is very well worth a rental. The movie that's out this week, produced but not directed by "City of God" helmer Fernando Meirelles, focuses on two friends growing in the rather rough world of Rio de Janeiro. With their eighteenth birthdays fast approaching, Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha) sets out to find the father he never met while Acerola (Douglas Silva) struggles to raise his own son.

I haven't seen this one yet, but the series that preceded it is just epicly good television, so the movie's coming this weekend from the Netflix.

Tyler Perry's Meet The Browns
The rather prolific Tyler Perry was clearly coasting a bit with this one, but it still has its charms, mostly due to the always-welcome Angela Bassett. Here she plays a single mom suffering through really tough times in Chicago when she's called to Georgia for the funeral of the father she never met. At that point it turns into mostly a showcase for two of Perry's favorite stage performers, David and Tamela Mann, and - of course - Bassett finds love in the arms of former Laker Rick Fox (this is a Tyler Perry movie, after all, so I'm really not giving too much away here!) And, be warned, Madea does indeed turn up at the end of this one.

My Blueberry Nights
For his journey to America, Chinese director Wong Kar Wai - who has created some lushly beautiful movies in his homeland - surrounds himself with plenty of beautiful people.

Norah Jones, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, Jude Law and even Cat Power (Chan Marshall) are along for the ride in this American road flick that (as far as I can tell) is all about love. The reviews I saw for this were mixed at best, but I've loved the few Wong flicks I've managed to see thus far, so this one's definitely on my rental list too.

And that's it for today. If you happen to go see "Hancock," please let me know what you thought. I'm gonna see it tomorrow morning, but my hopes aren't terribly high. Peace out.