Every Hero has their fatal flaw

Rating: 6/10 (7 July 2008)

Batman is the "Dark Knight" because he is what he fears and what he wants his enemies to fear a bat. This unique spin creates a dark superhero rare in comics. Spiderman has the tag line, " with great power comes great responsibility." He continually grapples with this throughout the comics, its what makes him likable. My point here is, every superhero has unique emotional attributes that help contribute to their mystique and popularity. Then there's Hancock.
Hancock is a great idea, a fowl-mouth, drunk, politically incorrect superhero. And it makes senses, it must be hard to be all alone and really I'm sure collateral damage is sometimes hard to avoid as we've learned from The Incredibles. All in all the premise is great and some-what shocking. The tone was definitely more R than PG in parts, but it was enjoyable none the less.
The problem is once Hancock starts getting into the groove of becoming his own brand of superhero like the greats I listed earlier, it starts to veer of into an unexpected and unwelcome twist.
The main problem with the twist is it fails to flesh out the basis of Hancock's character and his unique superhero identity, basically him being an asshole. If they had continued to make it more comical than emotional I could have easily enjoyed the twist. Instead it throws on tons of throwaway background dialog and emotional tripe that doesn't belong unless its coupled with Hancocks trademark toilet humor, which it is not.
Too many people are being caught up on the twist, but the twist isn't the problem the problem is the emotional weight of the twist is not coupled with the enigmatic humor that precipitated it and made Hancock's initial 45 minutes so enjoyable.
I don't hate this movie. Not at all, it is good, but not great. There are definitely better comic movies out this summer. Pretty much all of them, ( Wanted, The Hulk, Iron Man.) But, it isn't a bad movie either and it is enjoyable to watch, it just has me scratching my head. Is Hancock's fatal flaw his toilet-humor attitude, or his lack of storytelling chops.