Yesterday I went to the cinema to see the last Will Smith movie,
Hancock. I cannot say I have been dissapointed because I was not expecting something else from hollywood's prudishness. But in the other hand, I've expected some peaks of humor and double reading that I did not see, despite of Smith's so-called charming.
Having a superhero without alterego, being a homeless trap, boozed on a public bench, you'll expect some real romanticism, playing between a parody of Nietzschenian Übermensh and the drunk, funny caricature of a more "real-world" superman. But it doesn't happen.
In exchange, you get a subtle and lame propaganda of Scientology (the religion Will Smith more or less recently joined, the church of the rich and famous, the religion born from the misused science-fiction* and childish space opera) with a yuppie played by Jason Bateman, who obliquely reminded me to Tommy Davis, Scientology spokesman.
The plot's structure is almost the same as the structure of that religion's motto: Get free from drugs, be succesful, get people loving you, get properly dressed, etc. The american dream again and again. Not a super-anti-hero with human mistakes, not a superhero with a personality; all things that should be banned in the name of being proper and wearing tie and suit.
*: "I'm afraid he went crazy and turned a lot of other people crazy." [Arthur C. Clarke talking about L Ron Hubbard, KFYI radio, Phoenix Arizona 8-9pm show 1/24/04]
I started this project because I needed to do something outside my mercenary work. I felt I had to feed my soul with something else, and this was, at least for the moment, the answer I found.
