Everything right, except the most important thing - the script

Rating: 5/10 (2 July 2008)

Alfred Hitchcock, one of the greatest directors of them all, famously answered the question 'What makes a great movie?' with the phrase. 'The script, the script, the script.' Hancock is proof that The Master was 100% correct.
Everything about Hancock apart from the script is in place to make a good blockbuster picture - Will Smith is possibly the best A-List actor going at the moment, Jason Bateman is a fine comic actor, Charlize Theron offers sterling support, the special effects are good, it zips along at a fine pace, Peter Berg's direction is good... everything but the script works. But the script is terrible.
Hancock is a film about the rehabilitation of a drunken, foul mouthed, unloved superhero with no memory of his past (played by Smith) by a PR who's life he saves (Bateman). And the rehabilitation process is fun, witty and well-made and ends with Hancock foiling a bank robbery and becoming the hero he should be. However, this natural conclusion comes at around 45 minutes into the film. Realising that films tend to be longer than the duration of a TV Show something has to be added and it comes in the form of a truly dreadful second half in which it turns out the PR wife (Theron) is Hancock's wife and also a superhero and that, if they are too close a proximity to each other they will lose their powers. Although, in fairness, this twist is hinted at through the first half of the film it still feels like an unnatural attempt to artificially lengthen the movie and spoils much of the goodwill built up in the first half, becoming a generic, uninvolving superhero flick without a proper villain for our hero to contend with.
It's a shame that with superhero films the current rage, and with the talent of those involved, that this film couldn't be a successful parody of the genre's conventions. Hancock has existed, in one form or another, script wise for 12 years. It's been rewritten several times and that probably explains why it's script is such a mess. I love Will Smith. the guy could open a remake of Ishtar at Number 1, and I could watch the guy in pretty much anything, but this is the worst film he has made (through no fault of his own) since Wild Wild West. The first half would get a 7/8 and the second a 2/3 so I'll average the two out to give the film a 5.