When you have a movie that stars Will Smith, charlize Theron and Jason BAteman the emphasis is going to be on the acting as well as the action. There are a lot of special effects, explosions, fights and car chases but the heart of the movie comes from the acting talent of the stars.Smith plays John Hancock, a man with superhuman powers who doesn’t use his skills in the best way. Even when he is working to capture the bad guys or to right some other kind of wrong he makes mistake after mistake which ends up with the public hating him. He is in need of a good PR man and that is exactly what he gets when his path crosses that of Ray Embrey (Bateman).

Ray knows instinctively how to fix Hancock’s problems. He mounts a campaign to change his image and to make him the superhero he was born to be. This includes getting him off the booze and cleaning up his mouth. Ray’s wife Mary (Theron) doesn’t seem to care much for Hancock but their son Aaron (Jae Head) idolizes him.

Things get even more complicated when Hancock finds himself attracted to Mary. This attraction leads to even more revelations about who and what Hancock is. The audience gets one surprise after another.


All three stars are totally into their roles and make the audience believe even the wildest aspects of their lives. Director Peter Berg lets it all play out in a way that is entertaining and informative. You have to use your head in order to absorb it all, but the plot is believable in a fantasy kind of way.

The movie is rated PG-13 for way too much profanity and violence. Kids could have been huge fans of this film if the language had been toned down just a bit.

Will Smith is one of Hollywood’s few mega-stars. He can seemingly do no wrong in his choice of roles. This time out he chose to play a superhero, but one with a twist. He is totally convincing in the action and the acting requirements.

Theron and Bateman are perfectly cast opposite him. They make a trio of talent that is hard to beat. This is not a movie for the kiddies. The language discourages that potential audience. But for those looking for something a step beyond the typical action film, this is a good one to see. Will Smith flies and fights, but the selling point is how he inhabits the character totally.

The rise of digital technologies in filmmaking has cheapened the element of fantasy in movies. The most uninspired script and ham-fisted direction is far too frequently supersized with sequences of would-be razzle-dazzle. So that the very idea of seeing something completely original and imaginative and mind-blowing has become something of a wearisome drag. If you can see the never-before-seen in a Rob Cohen or Stephen Sommers movie, why bother?

Well, why you bother is because Guillermo del Toro is still making movies and may indeed be in his prime.

Del Toro is one of those visionaries who not only sees things the rest of us don’t but also knows how to build them and make them come alive and place them in works of art that impart meaning and emotion to them. He is a fantasist of the first order, a peer of Jean Cocteau, Federico Fellini, Jan Svankmajer, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch; take your pick.

Guillermo del ToroIn films such as “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Cronos,” “Mimic” and “Hellboy,” del Toro has combined mythology, nightmare and horror to bracing effect, sometimes to comment on politics or gender issues, sometimes to give life to dreamlike visions from other media, sometimes merely to play with strange puppets and costumes and decor. He’s made great use of the unusually built actors Ron Perlman and Doug Jones, and he has demonstrated a growth in his craft, acquiring subtlety and deftness even as his films have grown larger and more complex.

With “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” del Toro returns to the territory he first mined in 2004’s “Hellboy.” Based on the popular Dark Horse comic book character, that film introduced a cohort of bizarre and occasionally comical characters into a world where mythological creatures threaten mankind and the U.S. government uses other supernatural folks to oppose them.

This time, del Toro has, as in “Pan’s Labyrinth,” created a myth of his own concerning an indomitable army of clockwork soldiers and the angry prince of the unseen underworld who is determined to use it to crush humanity and reclaim the Earth for trolls and goblins. Being a del Toro script, there are elements of romance and the specter of parenthood, which in his vision can be as frightening as death. And there is some humor — never del Toro’s strong point — some of it oafish and some charming in a madcap, slapstick fashion.


Once again, Perlman plays the big, red, hotheaded Satan-spawn with the massive right hand and the very large guns. He’s been living with his fiery girlfriend, Liz (Selma Blair), long enough that domestic frustrations have set in, especially for her. And he’s been hidden by his government handler, Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) , long enough that he’s itching to get out in public and be noticed.

His chance comes when Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) decides that the immortal truce between the people of the underworld and humans has been too one-sided for too long. He has made a point of violently acquiring the materials he needs to revive the Golden Army, a legion of mechanical soldiers his father had built to destroy mankind. To pull off his heartless coup, he need not only defeat Hellboy and company, but he also must defy his own twin sister, Nuala (Anna Walton), who wishes the truce to continue and who has become beloved of Abe Sapien (the expressively angular actor Jones, with the voice of David Hyde Pierce), Hellboy’s colleague and best buddy.

The picture is filled with jaw-dropping visions: the tooth fairies; flying, piranha-like critters; the troll market; a wild underground caravansary; a forest god unleashed in Lower Manhattan; the transformation of the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland into an actual giant; a hissing, winged, multieyed creature that represents Hellboy’s destiny; a chamber made up of ever-moving clockwork gears; a menagerie of demonic critters; and the newest member of Hellboy’s universe, Johann Kraus, a kind of intelligent super-vapor living inside a diving suit and speaking mock-Germanic in a voice provided by “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane.

That’s all great. The foul-tempered Hellboy is a pleasure to be reunited with, and there are some wonderful action sequences and set-pieces. But an episodic quality keeps the film from gaining momentum and pulling you along in the sleek fashion of, say, “Iron Man.” Too, the gap between del Toro’s best inspirations and the flattest things in the film is pretty wide. A melancholy drinking bout scored to Barry Manilow, for instance, is not a moment for the pantheon, even if it makes people in a multiplex feel cuddly. Also, Tambor’s role has been reduced to goonishness more suited to “Get Smartt” than “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

Still, the sheer volume of amazing things that del Toro is able to mine from his unconscious and render plausibly on the screen is remarkable. “Hellboy II” feels pretty sequel-y, as these things go, but there’s a lot in it that has no precedent of any kind, anywhere, ever. That stuff makes it worthwhile.