How would the world feel if a superhero like Superman became a drunk who didn’t care about anything?  We saw what happened in a terrible Superman sequel but it only lasted for 10 minutes.  Will Smith however gives us a feature film on a loser superhero called Hancock.  Hancock is a film that I’ve not really been looking forward too.  Ever since I saw the first trailer I’ve been flip flopping my opinion on it; does it even looked good or not?  The thing about Hancock is it has a group of elements that draws me in to seeing this film.  Will Smith of course is a very good actor, Jason Bateman is another great actor, Charlize Theron is so gorgeous and director Peter Berg has really done some very good work with his films.  He’s also got a couple of other things on the way that I’m very looking forward too for example, Ron Moores Virtuality and the Dune remake.

Written by Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan, Hancock follows the story of a superhero who’s been disgraced in the eyes of the public for his actions.  Always drunk with a blatant disregard for nearly everything, Hancock gets help from a public relations professional named Ray Embrey played by Bateman to repair the damage he’s caused the public.  However Hancock finds out along the way that his history is more than what it seems.  After being skeptical on this film and now that I’ve seen it, was my skepticism worth it?  Does Hancock turn out to be a film that I shouldn’t have wasted my time on?  To my surprise, I liked some of what I saw but in the end it doesn’t live up to a some of the superhero films that we’ve seen.

What’s becoming a tradition with Will Smith films, the first 50 minutes or so was very entertaining.  Originally being rated R twice by the MPAA, Peter Berg was still able to keep a few entertaining scenes in the PG-13 film and with Will Smith’s comedic charisma I had several laugh out load moments.  Smith’s performance as Hancock was for the most part very entertaining.  The useless personality that he showed turned out to be very funny but don’t be fooled, Hancock isn’t a comedy.  I suppose Hancock is more of a character driven story than anything else.  Hancock himself just hates everything and what makes matters worse for him, is his memory from the larger part of his life is gone so he doesn’t know who, what or where he’s from.  That particularly causes him great grief until he finds Charlize Theron’s character, Mary Embrey, Jason Bateman’s characters wife.  With out giving away too much, she has… ehh, I’m not gonna spoil it for you but if you can’t figure it out when you first see them together than you’ve never seen films before.  The way Hancock treats people shows that this film isn’t your stereotypical superhero film, at least for the most part.  All around the performances were on target with their characters and that’s the strongest part about this film even in the second half when things turn around.

Most critics have torn apart the second half of Hancock and even though I didn’t find it as bad as they did, I certainly see where their problems are.  The turn around for Hancock from being a drunken mess into a traditional superhero was completely rushed.  During the first half we see Hancock struggling with his life and upon meeting Ray (Bateman) he starts to help Hancock go on the right path.  That lasted for about 15 minutes and he started saving lives and everyone loved him.  Basically at that point the laughs stopped and it went down hill from there.  That I say is the largest problem with a film that started off very well.  The most interesting thing about the second half is the reveal of Hancocks past, his mythology behind his life.  Even that however was rushed through and not told very well which is too bad because the mytho behind Hancock is really cool and I would have loved to have seen it expaned.  Another problem I had was the lack of a villain or a good one at least.  You’d think for a superhero movie they’d be some kind of a villain but since Hancock isn’t your normal superhero film, I supposed a real villain wasn’t necessary but the lack of a villain was surely noticeable for my part.

All in all, Hancock isn’t that bad of a movie.  It has a great beginning, good middle and an ok ending. I’s got great performances from the stars of the film but a lacking mythology to enrich their characters.  I don’t think I’d recommend Hancock for anyone until it comes out on DVD and it turns out to be a sad follow up to last years 4th of July movie Transformers.  I give Hancock a rating of 6.5 out of 10.

-Phil