Two ideas prevail. The first may be summed up in the term “anti-superhero,” or if you prefer it, “super-antihero.” The hero, that is to say, possesses the full complement of comic-book superpowers, yet he boozes round the clock, goes days without shaving, dresses like a slob if not a bum (rejecting the conventional superhero’s uniform as fit for a “homo”), is surly, rude, profane. Why he bestirs himself to pursue criminals is not apparent, but he never worries about collateral damage in the course of that pursuit, knocking down freeway signs, piling up cop cars, taking chunks out of skyscrapers, racking up a $9 million repair bill in just the film’s opening chase scene. The personality, in short, of an above-the-law pro athlete or rock star. The second idea, a late turn of plot, cannot be divulged. Then again, it is not really worth divulging. Nothing more, for that matter, is really worth divulging, if only because of the decision — the bad idea — the anti-idea — to sign up Peter Berg as the director, bringing to this juvenile fantasy the same cinéma-vérité affectations he brought to the ripped-from-the-headlines terrorist thriller, The Kingdom, or to the football docudrama, Friday Night Lights, the same jiggly, wavery, zoomy camerawork, the same pushy, tight, tunnel-vision closeups. To put a movie in his hands is to put it in very shaky hands indeed. Never mind a special-effects blockbuster, Peter Berg could not be entrusted to shoot a child’s birthday party. Will Smith, Jason Bateman, Charlize Theron. (2008) — Duncan Shepherd
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