there are complaints to be had, but mostly it's a fun summer action movie

Rating: 6/10 (3 July 2008)

Will Smith is a great star in Hollywood, and it's fun to see him in Hancock work his way with a character who's an "a-hole" (don't call him that, by the way, that's the buzz word) for the first half and then starts to open up and not be so much one in the second half. If for no other reason to see the film it's for him and for people like Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron to show what potential they have with their talents; Theron especially reminds an audience every once in a while that she won an Oscar for a reason. And, it's also for the first half of the way through the 90 minute running time a wonderful dark comedy that takes itself seriously but also pokes fun at a superhero who doesn't give a flying f*** and bums around saving people while also drinking his ass off and destroying lots of property.
But at some point when the writers decide to develop the mythology of the character, who is apparently somewhat God-like and is immortal under specific circumstances but also has 'another' like him (I won't say who, spoiler), and they don't give it enough time to really sink in after the somewhat 'twist' occurs 2/3 of the way through. And anything humorous in the first half is gone pretty much by near-movie's end, leaving it in the hands of Peter Berg, the director. This was the aspect of Hancock that grated down at me. Berg and his cameraman's style is to usually not bother with things like steadicams or dollys or a camera simply still on a tri-pod or other and to make everything hand-held and wobbly and oddly shot and (in the case of the hospital climax) just awfully lit and shot. It comes off as more-so amateurish than being intense or realistic, and it definitely doesn't fit the kind of movie it's meant to be placed in (i.e. JULY 4TH SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER, hello!) And yet, even with the problems I had, I wouldn't stop anyone from seeing Hancock, as a good way to kill an hour and a half and to enjoy some of Smith's best work to date. He's a charismatic and multi-faceted actor, but his star quality meshes well, and it's a performance that's worth every minute to see he's on screen for. If only the rest of the movie were as good as he and his co-stars.