I Watched Two Movies Recently

Which may not seem odd to many of you, but I generally don't watch movies in theaters or at home.  Most are about "human drama" which I don't need more of, action movies wore me out after Rocky and Diehard, and most sci-fi movies weren't faithful to the books or comic strips.  Especially the sci-fi.  Seriously, I'm old enough to have seen mostly bad sci movies when younger.

Most of my life, favorite sci fi comic books or real books have been made into truly dreadful movies.  Have you ever seen "Howard The Duck"?  A thoughtful mature social-satire comic was turned into a Grade D farce.  And the first Dune movie was little better. 

So I've been pleased the past decade or so as sci-fi and comic book characters have been turned into quality movies.  The second version of Dune was suberb, Siderman was very good, and the movie industry has done a decent job since.  They still mess up the characters badly (Lord of the Rings was most accurate).

But while Marvel comic characters have done reasonably well (being written toward college students), DC comic characters have generally not (Superman and Batman being exceptions).  So when I saw that Green Lantern was a movie on TV tonight, I cringed, but need something to watch while eating dinner.  Well, Green Lantern was probably one of the hokiest shallow undeveloped  characters DC comics ever created.  Really a magic ring lets you create anything you can imagine (no origin of the power or anything.  That's 1940s sci-fi stuff...

Imagine my surprise when I enjoyed the movie.  There was actually character development!  There was a theme.  There was even some philosophical discussion (the difference between fearlessness and courage for example).  I enjoyed it.

And there was a scene which I absolutely positively delighted in.  Green Lantern touched down on the balcony of his love interest (like in Superman).  She was amazed at his mystery and power (just like in Superman).  Then she looked at him, sniffed him, and identified him at once (unlike Superman).  I cracked up!  I don't know what writer got that scene in the movie, but I sure hope s/he got a raise and a bonus.  I flashed Two Thumbs Up and decided to watch the rest of the movie.   The rest was Ok, concluding with a reasonably good fight and a clever resolution based on information offerred earlier in the movie.

But I only watched Green Lantern because I had watched an anti-hero movie a few days ago.  Hancock.  If you haven't seen it, Hancock is the only superperson anywhere.  He is no hero.  He is lazy, irresponsible, drunk, stupid, carelessly destructive, and amnesiac.

In fact, he is only named "Hancock" because the hospital told him to put his "John Hancock" on the forms and he thought they knew that was his name (note to foreign readers - a "John Hancock" is a generic term for a signature because the real John Hancock wrote his name so LARGE on the Declaration Of Independence)

I would have thought about the amnesiac part earlier, but I assumed that some OTHER character would come along to straighten him out.  Well, actually I was right about that, but sure not in the way I expected.  There was no character to "straighten him out" by being stronger and wiser" (deus ex machia). 

Hancock goes through life stopping minor crimes by destroyed massive amounts of property just because that's the easiest way to do it, acting like an idiot physically and socially, and living a lonely boring life punctuated by violence.  The citizenry is thinking they might be better off without him but there is nothing they can do about him.  He is invulnerable and seemingly immortal.  He's sort of like the vigilante semi-crazed Batman with Superman powers, except that he doesn't seem to care about crime other than than that he gets to really beat up on the bad guys.

And then, oh so slowly, a past begins to emerge.  He begins to recognize that he is destructive.  The wife of his best friend turns out to be a superperson too.  Not different (ie, "feminine" powers),  to oppose Hancock; identical! 

After the obligatory fight scenes (equal to the last iota of energy) where they seem to destroy a large part of a city (after which it seemed to me that even Hancock looked around appalled), the truth starts to come out. 

Hancock first lived in ancient times, created by ancient deities.  Beings like him were created in pairs, male/female.  As they found each other, their powers waned so that after so many years they could live mortal lives and love, raise families, and finally die (often called the "mortals blessing" in mythology).  Hancock and Mary (the female superpower) were the last of the pairs. 

In a touching scene, she explains all his scars as examples of what happens when the two of them are close and their powers weaken.  Though nearly mortal, he fought off swordsmen in Sumeria (Persia?), saved her a few more times through history.  They always had to separate to regain their powers. 

But the last time they were together, he was injured so badly he was amnesiac, not eve remembering who he or Mary was.  She left him so he could survive, determined to stay away from him forever to keep him alive.

After getting in touch again (Hancock saves Mary's husband's life) the weakness begins again,  Hancock is shot in a minor robbery.  While stopping from (unexplained?) assassins from killing Hancock, Mary is mortally wounded.  Hancock (near death) manages to kill the assasins efficiently (throwing several out of high windows) and Mary's EKG flatlines.  Hancock understands what is happening and leaps out the high window himself to increase the distance between himself and Mary.

He survives the fall (barely) and so jumps further away, gaining strength as he gets further away.  Mary de-flatlines!  Her fingers twitch, she breathes again, she lives.  Her husband Ray (who understands everything by now) rushes to her side with the young daughter.  All is well in her world.

The resolution is basically that Hancock has learned responsibility, purpose, and control in line with his original created intent, and that Mary will have a temporary loving marriage with Ray.  That she and Hancock will have a new relationship in the future, and that Earth will have a superhero. 

I note (cautiously) that Hancock and Mary seem to have not had any children in the times they were together.  There might be an origin movie someday.

But it was sure a good movie.  And having watched only 2 movies in several years,  Those were good ones.