Hi! Always nice to see new commenters. Can I ask how you found me? (Just curiosity, not hostility: anything I post publically is open to all!)
I'm really glad to know you agree though. I love it when stories manage to pull off a key change, like Farscape. And sometimes Joss Whedon (though lately I've been finding his "key changes" a little perfunctory and lazy).
I agree about the shooting too. The clues are there, the bruise, the way he misses the hoop shot in the prison, but there's just no way we - or he - expected to look down at his torso and see blood.
When he was running away at the end, I found myself comparing it to Superman in Superman Returns when he's fighting despite being wounded by the kryptonite. The difference is one of global influence: everyone knew that Superman was out there fighting and he was saving the world. Hancock was saving himself and his...family I suppose, but saving the world too because he had refound his purpose and because he was going to help Ray with a different kind of worldsaving.
I thought Superman Returns was excellent, so this is in no way an indictment of it (because Hancock and Superman are very different characters), but that kind of simultaneous big scale and small scale is great in this film. It's sort of...more heroic in some ways because Hancock doesn't have that pressure that everyone in the world is counting on him. He just has himself, and Mary, and her family. It's heroism in anonymity, I guess. And I think it's really moving (to use a cliche word) that its a story the world will never hear about that gives him the strength to go back to being a superhero.
As to Ray not knowing that Hnacock woke up eighty years ago, I guess that you have a point, but also the film doesn't give us a lot of Hancock's history. We know that he originally came from Miami. He may not have started fighting crime in Los Angeles until a few years ago, or Ray may have recently moved to Los Angeles. Although you'd think Ray would know about him anyway even if he was in another city.
Then again, while I'm sure Hancock was always out saving people in some way, he may only have become a superhero celebrity in recent times.
I can kind of see him not setting out to get recognised until he's so lonely and confused by his state that he gives up trying to find out who he was, gives up caring, and gives up trying to keep a low profile and prevent collatoral damage?
I dunno, I'm probably retconning wildly at this point, but it didn't really bother me that much in context. :)
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I'm really glad to know you agree though. I love it when stories manage to pull off a key change, like Farscape. And sometimes Joss Whedon (though lately I've been finding his "key changes" a little perfunctory and lazy).
I agree about the shooting too. The clues are there, the bruise, the way he misses the hoop shot in the prison, but there's just no way we - or he - expected to look down at his torso and see blood.
When he was running away at the end, I found myself comparing it to Superman in Superman Returns when he's fighting despite being wounded by the kryptonite. The difference is one of global influence: everyone knew that Superman was out there fighting and he was saving the world. Hancock was saving himself and his...family I suppose, but saving the world too because he had refound his purpose and because he was going to help Ray with a different kind of worldsaving.
I thought Superman Returns was excellent, so this is in no way an indictment of it (because Hancock and Superman are very different characters), but that kind of simultaneous big scale and small scale is great in this film. It's sort of...more heroic in some ways because Hancock doesn't have that pressure that everyone in the world is counting on him. He just has himself, and Mary, and her family. It's heroism in anonymity, I guess. And I think it's really moving (to use a cliche word) that its a story the world will never hear about that gives him the strength to go back to being a superhero.
As to Ray not knowing that Hnacock woke up eighty years ago, I guess that you have a point, but also the film doesn't give us a lot of Hancock's history. We know that he originally came from Miami. He may not have started fighting crime in Los Angeles until a few years ago, or Ray may have recently moved to Los Angeles. Although you'd think Ray would know about him anyway even if he was in another city.
Then again, while I'm sure Hancock was always out saving people in some way, he may only have become a superhero celebrity in recent times.
I can kind of see him not setting out to get recognised until he's so lonely and confused by his state that he gives up trying to find out who he was, gives up caring, and gives up trying to keep a low profile and prevent collatoral damage?
I dunno, I'm probably retconning wildly at this point, but it didn't really bother me that much in context. :)