Hancock & film Essay

Hancock is a film starred by Will Smith as Hancock himself. This film separates itself from the rest of the films for it is an unconventional story of a super hero. The media has instilled in its audience that as a superhero, one must be a good role model. He should be, if not perfect at all, at least close to being one. And yet, this film is a story of the superhero who was a drunkard and undisciplined and selfish man. He seemed ordinary. It was hard to somehow believe that he can save lives. That was what was special about this film. It created a new image of a superhero. It showed a different angle on creating a good superhero. It showed that man is capable of becoming a hero, no matter how bad he can become at times. With these differences it had, it was rather right to question if the film was an effective superhero film. The location and the setting of the film were appropriate to its story. It had the view of an everyday and ordinary life of an ordinary man. Since Hancock was not to be considered as the typical superhero, it seemed that he was treated as an ordinary but strong character. His environment emphasized his strength and his goodness. His strength was presented when people around him tried to insult him. This was shown in scenes where he was called an asshole and then he made sure he was able to teach the person who called him with such name a lesson. Nonetheless, he was provided with the attitude of goodness. His environment was filled with criminals and law breakers. It showed that even if Hancock was drunkard, he wanted to make sure that he saved lives and put criminals in jails. The Mise-en-scene of the film was even so effective in aiding the story through out the duration of the film despite the weakness of the storyline. Hancock, as a superhero film, was expected to have low angle shots to show the authority of the protagonist or the superhero. However, there were a number of high angle shots in the film which suggests the authority of the audience. The shots of Hancock were always either close up shots or medium shots. This focuses the film to Hancock himself. It relayed the message to me that Hancock should be closely watched for the story centers around him and I, as an audience, am a part of his environment. With this, there seemed to be something different with the film. It is not just any typical superhero film. It is rather more emotionally attached in the part of the audience, given the high angle shots and the close up and medium shots of the character. This may be a good one, but also, it can be a bad one. Focusing on its bad effect, it lost its capacity to establish the authority and superiority of the lead character, who was supposed to be treated as an ordinary human yet a superhero. The shots were not moderately thorough which resulted to the was confusion in the shots whether he should be an ordinary lead character or the superhero. If the cinematography was good, it should have made it possible for the audience to identify the character’s role with its visual content, even without the dialogues of the film. The editing of the film was fairly clean. However, there were effects which were slightly disorienting or confusing. One example is when Hancock flew with the car of the pursued criminals. The car bumped on buildings but the buildings were broken instead of the car. One would ask the question, ‘How can that be possible? ’ Although it must aslo be considered that this film is a fiction and it should contain improbable scenes. As the audience, my reason for stating that the editing was fairly clean is because it was able to put to visual an ordinary setting. There were clean cuts of the frames. The transition from one scene to another was clear. On the other hand, there were only minimal special effects like the flying of Hancock, the breaking of the buildings, cars and roads. Other than that, there was nothing more to suggest in the editing that Hancock was a superhero film. Moving on to the musical scoring and sound effects, the film was able to have its audio presented well. The musical scoring was appropriate to the scenes where it was played. An example is when Hancock was flying and the song was Get out the Way by Ludacris. There were birds and other things that were blocking him in flying faster to where he was needed. Another example is the scene where Hancock was in jail and Ray and Mary were thinking about him. The background sound was dramatic and it showed the emotions of the character towards each other. The sound effects were in same manner as appropriate as the musical score. The crashing of the cars, the breaking of the buildings, the flying of Hancock, the cheering and booing of the crowd, the flashing of the camera of reporters, and many other sound effects were placed in the proper scenes. Even the small details were given the proper sound effects. Nothing was taken for granted when it came to the audio. The characters’ delivery of their lines was clear which suggests the usage of proper and reliable devices. The volume of the background sounds were also just enough for the audience to get the hold of both the emotion of the character and the setting of the scene. All in all, the sound of the film acted as its soul. And it is but fair that this made the film live justifiably well in its technical sense on music and sound. The most important contributor in this film was its Mise-en-scene. It was well provided and it was very effective in its purpose in identifying the film as a superhero yet, seemingly ordinary world of Hancock. It was a very good establishing point of the story. It was able to tell the story as clearly as possible. Although I must say that the story was not as strong as it should have been and the cinematography lacked a little organization. Still, the Mise-en-scene was able to provide the audience the factors and elements they it needed in order to be well-informed about the film. It provided the proper imagination for the audience to fully grasp what the scriptwriter and the director wanted to convey. The question whether Hancock was an effective superhero film or not, I must answer that it did not have the strongest justification for a yes. The visual of the scenes were good, however the shots and angles were not as good. There seemed to be something missing in the scenes. The sound in the film provided the audience well with aid to the visual but it was not quite enough. The film needed a tighter interconnection of the visual and the audio in the technical aspect so as to deliver the story well. And although the Mise-en-scene and the sounds of the film were independently provided well, it still lacked the spice to say that the film was indeed an effective superhero film.